


you're looking like you fell in love tonight (could we pretend that we're in love?)

by fortunatedaughter



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-21 23:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 31,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8264347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunatedaughter/pseuds/fortunatedaughter
Summary: A collection of ficlets & one-shots from tumblr prompts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **anonymous:** ginny has asthma that she hasn't told her teammates about, mike freaks out in concern when he sees her have an attack.

The first time she has an asthma attack, she’s 16 and just stolen home base.

(Her Dad nearly looses his shit. It’s the first time she’s ever seen Bill Baker be so fucking scared about something.)

She doesn’t remember much about the event itself; just a tightness in her chest that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times she sucked in large amounts of air and the distinct feeling of her heart beating faster and faster with each passing second. (Her Dad later said her lips went so blue so fast and if it hadn’t been for the inhaler in the first aid kit, he would have called 911.)

Her doctor says she’s only got a mild form of asthma - that the risk of having frequent attacks is low and it’s really only gonna be a problem if she pushes herself harder than she usually would with any kind of physical activity. He gives her an inhaler and some meds to take long term and levels her with a look. “This will only be a problem if you let it be one, Ginny.”

(She pushes herself one fateful day in San Antonio, a handful of weeks after Will’s gone home and Amelia’s taken his place. The blonde doesn’t say anything as the attack cedes, merely purses her lips and nods. Ginny’s never been more thankful for such quiet strength in her life.)

* * *

With every passing baseball milestone, she thinks about that day - counts down the days between that attack and the next one and wonders what her teammates will think. It’s one thing for a minor league or an amateur player to have asthma - it’s quite another for a major league player. (The night before her first game with the Padres she prays for a smooth season.)

It happens six months after her first game. She’s on third base, debating whether or not it’s actually worth it to steal home when Cruz hits a midfielder fly ball and the player drops it - she doesn’t even think - just runs, pushes herself past her carefully constructed limits and takes home base when she feels it happen.

That tightness in her chest, rapid breathing doing nothing, fear leaking into her bloodstream as her heartbeat ticks up with increasing frequency. Ginny staggers away from home base on shaky feet, lips turning blue and with blurry vision she catches the gaze of Mike, growing increasingly worried with each passing second. She wants to scream out - Help me! Please, help me! - but she kept this a secret for a reason and no one on the team knows and they can't - they can't help her.

Within moments she’s falling to her knees, struggling to breathe. Amelia comes crashing down from the VIP Booth, screaming about inhalers and death and God - God, she’s just so cold and why is the stadium so quiet?

Mike is the first one to reach her. “Ginny!” He slides down next to her, dirt colouring his usually white uniform and worry leaking into his gaze. One hand curves around her neck, holding her up since she can't seem to do so herself. He presses an inhaler into her hand but the effort it takes to move her arm is just too much and it all hurts so fucking much - “I got you, sweets, come on, easy does it.” He mutters, using her arm as his own, bringing it to her mouth and pressing down on the inhaler, the medicine filtering into her lungs. "I got you, I got you, I got you." He mutters, the words sounding like a prayer and a pro

Thirty minutes later, Ginny is sequestered away in the clubhouse with the team doctor when Mike comes barrelling in, stormy expression on his face.

“The fuck is wrong with her!” He yells, eyes wide and dare anyone say it - showing clear and utter panic. (Mike is fairly certain the rapid sight of her lips turning blue is something that shaved ten or so years off his life, and an image he'll never forget, no matter how much alcohol he consumes.

Amelia swallows, shaking her head with a haunted look in her eyes. “Asthma - it’s an asthma attack.”

“What? Ginny - Baker," He corrects, catching himself at the last minute. "Doesn’t have -”

“It was kept out of the press. She’s got enough to deal with being a woman, we don’t need to add an aliment that affects 242 million people.”

A heavy exhale blows past his lips and Mike's gaze turns to the curtained areas where the doctor is with her.

"Go." Amelia says softly.

Mike doesn't need to be told twice.

* * *

 

While the sight of Ginny with blue lips, staggering off home base and falling to her knees, unable to breathe is an image he's likely never to forget, the sight of her tired body slumped against the wall, oxygen mask on her face is another image he could possibly do without when it comes to his rookie.

Her doctor nods at Mike and leaves quietly before Mike collapses in the chair sitting across from her.

“Jesus Baker." He exhaled. "Nearly gave an old man a heart attack.”

Ginny lets out a short bark of laughter before wincing, her eyes pained as she breathes deeply from the oxygen mask. “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.”

He quiets, merely looking at her in that intense way of his, eyes probing her, assessing for himself whether or not she’s really and truly okay. Ginny never knows why, but she always feels distinctly bare whenever he does that; as if every careful piece of armour and wall she’s built over the years has merely fallen away. It thrills and excites her in equal measure - something she’s not quiet sure what to do with.

His hand comes to rest on her shoulder and Mike squeezes. It's bordering on the cusp of their attraction - a reminder that there's something simmering between them, always, no matter who they fuck and who they go out with each Friday night.

“You really okay?” He asks softly.

She nods.

His lips press together, a frown blooming between his brows. "Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ginny shrugs. “Didn’t want it to be another thing ontop of all the other shit I get. Plus it’s only mild, so - not that big of a deal.”

Mike scowls. “It is to me.”

Ginny looks down guilty, before removing the oxygen mask. “Sorry.”

He exhales roughly, squeezing her shoulder once again. “No more secrets?”

"No more secrets."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** ginny falls asleep on mike's shoulder on a long bus ride home.

She played a hell of a game today.

He knows it too, because if he concentrates real hard on the bones in his hand, he swears on all that his holy, his hand still stings from the first outing of her knuckleball that afternoon.

The drive from Miami back to San Diego is going to be a goddamn nightmare - they’ve gotta stop in Texas and despite what Ginny and Blip claim: Texas is not a state he usually enjoys. It’s the dust, people, the dust. But as it usually is with all bus trips, it’s tradition for rookie and veteran, pitcher and catcher to sit next to each other. The guys have tried, of course, to get Ginny to sit with them but Mike’s always proud to note it’s him that she drops next to, prattling on about something or a rather.

(It’s usually baseball. Or a movie that Evelyn dragged her too last week. Every now and then though she’s a little quieter and he knows she’s thinking about her old man.)

Somewhere between Mississippi and Louisiana, though, with the darkness outside the window, the heat somehow still soaking through the glass and an insomniac Mike watching the lights drift by, he feels it. Ginny shifts in her seat next to him, whimpering softly as she can’t seem to get comfortable. He’s about to do well, - something since she’s gonna start waking the others up soon, before she shifts again, her head coming to rest against his shoulder.

The sharp inhale of breath Mike takes at the action is a bad fucking idea, if the waft of her nectarine shampoo and subtle sweat smell (other clubs still don’t have women’s showers) is anything to go by. It’s intoxicating, damn near better than any perfume Rachel ever wore or the mere taste of Amelia’s skin.

He’s in half a mind to shove her off his shoulder (her leaning against him is a sweet, sweet torture) but - like most things when it comes to Ginny Baker, Mike Lawson can’t bear to do so. (He should stop having feelings for her, stop dreaming about her, stop thinking about her so damn much - but he fucking can’t.)

Instead, he sighs softly and settles back into his own seat. It was gonna be a long ride back home.

Between Texas and New Mexico, Mike jerks softly awake, confused at his surroundings before he notes that it’s sunrise, Ginny’s still asleep against him, and he, shockingly, had fallen asleep too. With a slight smile, Mike shifts back into his seat once again. He can stand to get a few more hours.

(When they get back to San Diego and he sees the image of the two of them, Ginny passed out on his shoulder and Mike’s own head leaning against hers, the two of them dead to the world, on the Padres’ twitter account, Mike can’t even summon any anger. He looks too peaceful for it to be real anyway.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** mike buys ginny her favorite comfort food out of the blue.

Most of the world knows that nectarines are her a favourite of hers. She often associates the fruit with a soft kind of fondness - I don’t want to see any dents in the nectarine from these fingers. - but they’re not the thing she goes to when she needs comfort.

If she needs a reminder of her Pop, of how far she’s come, of what it’s like to be back in North Carolina when the summer heat presses against her chest, she reaches for the the fruit.

When she needs a hug, a warm reminder that she’s here and she’s real and she’s valid - she reaches for what every meat loving person usually does. Burgers. (Of the seven things she can cook in total, burgers are the one thing she mastered early on. It’s always easy to make a burger. Always.)

They’re broken down in California, somewhere between LA and San Diego - Twitter is having a field day with that one - when Mike disappears. And it’s not like she can’t survive on her own without him, and she has got friends on the team now that they’ve all gotten over their egos and bruised prides…

It’s just she likes being around him. There’s something about him that grounds her, feels real and raw and like she’s going from strength to strength; and not like some little girl who’s gonna be one day picked out as the imposter in the team.

(Ginny is of course, aware that her feelings are bordering on the damn inappropriate and that she’s already toeing the line as it is and going any further than she has is basically a recipe for danger, but. Her Pop always said she had a thing for the 

He drops the paper bag in her lap without a word. Ginny frowns, her gaze darting from the bag to Mike and back again. Hesitantly, she pulls the bag open, half expecting some kind of prank when the smell hits her.

Double bacon cheeseburger with onion rings, hot sauce on the side. The burger and onion rings he could have guessed, of course, most people who eat like burgers when they’re feeling down… but the hot sauce? (Later on, she’ll learn that apperantly she puts hot sauce on a lot of things; from her eggs to her onion rings to even loading up her Bloody Marys with more hot sauce then most usually do. She’ll learn that Mike was watching the whole time, soaking in the little details.)

Her head snaps in Mike’s direction. “How did you -”

He snorts, looking at her like she was an idiot, but his idiot. “You forget, I was there, front row seat, actually, to when you had surgery on your elbow. All you wanted as Evelyn’s cooking. Made takin’ care of you a near damn nightmare.”

Ginny blinks at Mike in surprise - surprised that he remembered that event since it was nearly 9 months ago, surprised that he was even on Taking Care of Ginny Duty. The pain meds had made her more loopy than she usually ever was and the days had blurred together after awhile till she was able to go off them.

“Eat.” He jerks his chin at the bag. “Or I’ll feed em’ to the Gremlin across the aisle.”

“Hey!” Tommy calls out, offended.

Ginny laughs.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **insomniabug:** id love to see a scene where ginny actually asks mike to sign her rookie card...only for him to pull out a 'baker' shirt/card and ask for the same.

“Hey, uh - can - can you sign this?” She holds out his rookie card - in near pristine condition as the same day she bought it. A little frayed at the edges, sure, and the colour’s probably not as bright as it was once was, but anyone who glances at it can see - a much younger Mike, stubble in place of a beard and looking like he was one step closer to taking over the world.

If only he knew.

Mike exhales, a hand scrubbing over the back of his neck. “Baker -”

“You know, last game and all, might as well do something to commemorate that, right?” Ginny tries for a joke, but all she can really muster is a watery smile.

(At the end of today he’s gone - not gone, gone, she’s still going to see him because Mike’s her friend now, one of her closest - but he’s no longer going to be behind the diamond, signaling her, he’s no longer going to be the one she sits next to on the bus or during any form of transport to away games. The lump in her throat grows each time she thought about it.)

“Only if you sign mine.” Mike tugs his own card out of his jacket pocket, casually handing it over to Ginny.

“What -” She frowns, before her gaze catches on the image.

It’s her.

 ** _BAKER, GINNY. 43_**. 

And just like that, the tears that have been following her around all day spill over and she glances away. “ _Christ_ , I swore to myself I wasn’t gonna cry today.”

(He has her rookie card just like she has his and it - it aches. She doesn’t wanna loose this, even though his doctor said any longer in this game and a double knee reconstruction was going to be the least of his problems.)

Mike smiles, the action tinged with sadness. “Gimme.” His chin jerks at the card and delicately, they exchange them, signing names. As soon as Ginny caps the Sharpie, she throws herself into his arms, hugging him for all he’s worth.

“Gonna miss you, old man.” She mutters into his neck, inhaling the warm, heady scent and trying to pretend like she wasn’t commit this whole thing to memory.

“Not going anywhere, rookie.” He rasps, voice distinctly more choked up than it was moments before. “You really think it’s gonna be that easy to get rid of me?”

Ginny laughs wetly, pulling away to wipe at the tears staining her cheeks. “Careful, I just might hold you too that.”

“You better.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** established mike/ginny: mike almost gets ejected from a game because the man at bat wouldnt stop being an ass to ginny. quote for inspiration; "watch it buddy, i may be ten years older than you but i can still knock you on your ass"

Given half the shit Mike hears behind the plate on a good day - he should be used to this by now. (17 years he’d been doing this and he’s seen some shit. Heard it too. Not a lot really gets to him any more, except it seems, the curly haired rookie pitcher some 18 point 39 meters from him that for whatever reason has his heart. Don’t bother to try and understand that - Mike’s been trying for the last six months and he still doesn’t get it.)

 _Screwball_ , he signs and Ginny nodded. Wind up, throw, **catch** \- pretend there’s no sting still in his hand from that nasty throw.

“Screwballin’ _bitch_.” Cruz mutters, glaring as he stepped out of the box, back inside within moments.

Mike’s eye twitched. An inning left with Ginny and then he can tune out the rest of the game. _Fastball_. Ginny hesitated for the slightest of seconds before nodding.

( _You may not trust your fastball, but you need to trust me._ )

Strike. Mike smirks, pride filling his whole self. That was his girl.

Cruz, however, does not find it nearly as endearing as Mike does. “Does this bitch even know how to fuckin’ **throw**?”

“Watch it.” Mike growled, shifting to stand (he can feel the twinges in his knees long before they start these days.) “Have some respect alright?”

“Respect for a girl who got picked over Walker?” He scoffed, back straightening, gearing up for a fight. “Please.”

Mike stands to his full height, which, admittedly is only a handful of inches taller than Cruz (Thanks Mom, for those tiny Indonesian genes of yours.) "I may be ten years old than you, but I _can_ knock you on your ass.”

“Lawson!” The umpire snaps, eyes narrowing. “Back in formation!”

“Awh, nah, come on ump, Lawson probably hasn’t seen any action in a long time, given that little rookie’ he’s gotta carry around!” He sneers. “Then again, maybe he’s _gettin_ ’ it from the rookie, eh Lawson?”

The dig at his sex life isn’t what he really cares about. He’s been taking hits for **that** since Rachel decided fucking David Andrews was more important and he decided to fuck his feelings out with half of San Diego’s women. He doesn’t care - he can take it.

But Ginny? Ginny who worked harder than anyone? (Twice as good she’d once told him, I have to be twice as good just to even half a chance as everyone else.) And yeah, sure, his own emotions are playing into that here but none of that changes the fact she deserves respect.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ginny on the mound, that nervous twitch in her jaw that only shows up when she’s worried he’s gonna do something _really_ stupid. She might be onto something this time round though, that much Mike can admit.

He pulls the catcher’s mask off her face. “Why don’t you try saying that a little louder, Cruz? Drive it home, give me a damn good excuse to knock you on your ass.”

“Lawson!” The umpire growls. Mike pays him no mind.

“Guarantee this whole stadium’ll agree with me when I do.”

“ _Lawson_! Final. Warning. **Back** in formation!”

His eyes narrow and he steps forward, going toe to toe with the batter. “Might even be worth the fine.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Ginny’s worried glance his way - carefully kept under the wraps of pitcher and catcher, - before Mike inhales. It’s not worth it, though, when he thinks about it. He’s got a great season coming up. He’s got the girl, got the legacy; punching out Cruz who’ll probably peak in the next six months really isn’t worth it.

“You know what, I was wrong. Wouldn’t even be worth the bruised knuckle.” He pulls his mask back on, and crouching down. He’s got a game to win.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **greenfaeriefly:** may i add to your ever growing pile of fic prompts? in light of the fall out with her mom i would love either: a team thanksgiving, where all the team members too far from home/with no one else to spend it with all make dinner together. OR mike maybe accidentally spills about the fight to his mum, who realizes ginny won't have anyone to spend thanksgiving with and invited her along with all the other stray teammates to join them. okay, really i'm just here for ginny and mike's mum.
> 
>  
> 
> the translations are:  
> \- berhenti: stop  
> \- tata krama: manners  
> \- anak iblis: devil child/child of the devil

Iriana Lawson, for all her 5'3 height, is a mighty woman. She raised a strong son and a wayward daughter while standing still in the face of being an outcast in her husband’s country, in the face of her children never quite being accepted once they learned where her origins lied. (She remembers the day Albert walked into her family’s store, fresh off the Navy ship docked in the harbour and knowing, without a doubt that her life was to change irrevocably.)

Near 42 years later and Iriana is proud to say she has no regrets. Her eldest is artistic, creative, convoluted and at times, a goddamn nightmare but she couldn’t be happier. Her youngest is talented, strong, capable and at times, a pain in her ass, but she couldn’t be prouder.

Standing in front of the calendar stuck to the fridge, a pencil taps against her lips while her son putters around his apartment, miles away in San Diego.“What date does your flight land again?” She questions.

“Uh - the 20th, I think but I might have to change it.”

Iriana pauses. “Why?”

“A few on the team don’t have anything to do this Thanksgiving so we were going to so a group dinner beforehand.” Mike huffs, is if the whole thing is a damn inconvenience. Iriana knows better - her son, for all his grumbling, is a man who holds family near and dear. He’s quite possibly happy at getting the chance to play father for the holiday.

An idea springs into her mind. “I could come to you this year… - cook in that barely used kitchen of yours.”

“Ma.” Mike growls.

“What?” Iriana retorts, accent thickening. She never quite lost the lilt to her English and it always came back in full force when arguing with her children. “There’s enough room.”

“M'not inviting people I see nearly every damn day to my home.”

“Michael.” Iriana’s voice hardens. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

Mike pauses and is silent for a moment, huffing. “Alright, alright, fine.”

She smiles. “And make sure you invite Ginny Baker too.” She hadn’t forgot about that fight the girl had had with her own mother - if it wasn’t for Mike growling about it when he last visited, she probably would have never known about the protectiveness her son feels for the woman. (It’s for that, she’s glad her son takes after her when it comes to his emotions. He always wears his heart on his sleeve, no matter how broken it is and all it takes for someone to see it is too look in the right place. Privately she wonders if Ginny Baker knows where to look for her son’s heart.)

A groan. “Jesus, Ma, come on , Baker doesn’t wanna -”

“Michael, _berhenti_.” She snapped. “Have you asked her?”

“…No.”

“She has no one.” Iriana murmured quietly. “It is settled. Your father and I will fly up on the 20th and your sister on the 23rd.”

* * *

“All of you. 12 Cross Street, 538 building, apartment 5.” Mike scowled. “Don’t be late or my mother will have all our asses.”

The mood in the clubhouse, where previously somber and downtrodden, was now somewhat happier and chipper - being alone on the holiday dedicated to family suddenly didn’t seem like that much of a reality any longer.

Mike swivels his gaze to Ginny, lurking near her locker with a frown on her face. “That includes you too, Baker.”

“Mike you don’t -”

“Baker.” The catcher cut her off. “My mother might be a tiny woman but she married into the Navy and somehow managed to raise two kids on that shitty ass paycheck. You don’t wanna say no to her, alright?”

Ginny tamps down a smile. “Okay.”

Mike nods once. “Pick you up at 10.”

* * *

She looks expressly and annoyingly pretty - the warm wine red dress she’s wearing with tights and ankle boots so very understated for the dresses Ginny Baker is usually forced into for appearances - but Mike finds it’s so very her and that, that alone makes it infinitely better than any other dress he’s seen her in. (That of course, might also have something to do with the fact that when she sits, Mike gets an express glance at the skirt of the dress riding up and, well - you can see where that thought is going.)

“Ginny!” Iriana greets warmly as the door flies open, smiling as she’s forced to slightly look up at the other woman. She pauses, frowning. “Or do you prefer Ginnifer?”

Shrugging off her light coat, the pitcher laughed slightly, shaking her head. “Ginny’s fine, Mrs. Lawson.”

“Please, call me Iriana. Now, come,” Her hands waved her forward. “Let me look at you. I have to see the girl that’s set the world alight up close.”

“Jesus, Ma, come on.” His hands came to wrest on Ginny’s shoulders and he attempted to steer her out of the way of his mother. “The girl just walked in the door.”

“ _Tata krama_ , Michael. I raised you better than that.” Her chin jerked in the direction of Mike’s kitchen. “Go help your sister with the food.”

Mike blindly turns his gaze, near panicked. (Nearly everyone in the Lawson family remembers the last time Vanessa tried to bake.) “Did she start -”

Iriana rolled her eyes, the action merely falling off her back. “No, she didn’t. She knows the desserts are your territory, little one.”

Miken nodded, before reaching out and gently wrapping his hand around Ginny’s elbow, tugging her alongside him and towards the kitchen. “M'takin the rookie with me, crazy lady.”

“ _Anak iblis_.” Iriana retorted, but the insult - from what Ginny could tell - was tinged with fondness.

* * *

Moments later, side by side Mike and Ginny stand in the kitchen as they mix away at a cake, something Ginny couldn’t for the life of her pronounce. (She barely passed high school Spanish, how she was expected to keep up with the rapid fire Indonesian Iriana prattled out at her two children and husband?)

“I wasn’t expecting…”

“What? For my mother to be a tiny little Indonesian woman?” He questions, hands deftly separating egg yolk after egg yolk. (Ginny counted 5 so far and wondered what the fuck kind of cake he was making.) Thankfully he didn’t seem angry or anything, more amused by the whole concept - like he was used to the fact people didn’t expect him to be half-Asian.

“Yeah.”

Mike shrugged. “She was born in Bali. Met my Dad when his ship docked there, and when he got stationed state-side, she moved here.”

Ginny nodded, sittring the mixture placed in front of her with a wooden spoon. “So do you speak Indonesian?”

“Little here and there. Not as much as Ma though she did try and teach me growing up.”

She grinned. “I’d pay good money to say that.”

Mike laughed, quick and fast. “Give it twenty minutes and Ma’ll be breaking out the photo albums.”

“ _Stuff_ , Baker. Don’t fight the process.”

* * *

Two hours later, Ginny sits on the back balcony mug of apple cider in her hands, watching the sunset. The other members of the team who joined their impromptu Thanksgiving dinner are still loudly chattering away inside, happily fighting over what remained off the impressive spread Iriana Lawson put out.

“You know leaving me to fend off my parents, my sister and half the team all alone is considered a crime against humanity.” Mike drawled, slipping out onto the balcony.

Ginny hid a smile behind her mug. “Your mom’s nice, old man.”

“She’s fuckin’ crazy.” He paused. “Obsessed with grandkids. Half convinced she only wants em as a chance for a do-over.”

In a quick and blinding moment, sadness washed over Ginny and she pressed her lips together, glancing away from Mike and back out over the San Diego skyline.

He frowned softly. “You okay?”

Ginny shrugged. “Miss my Pop.” She sighed. “Thanksgiving was always our holiday, you know? After he and Mom spilt up, me and Will’d do this exchange thing. I got Thanksgiving with Pop and Christmas with Mom.”

Mike kicks off leaning against the banister, coming to “Ginny - if I could do something to make it better…”

She shook her head. “You being here is better. Thanks - thanks for inviting me.”

Mike shrugged. “Anytime.” He turned, shooting Ginny a meaningful glance. “Mean that.”

(They don’t go inside for another twenty minutes.)

* * *

“You love my son, don’t you?” Iriana questions, glancing up from where she was drying the dishes.

Ginny wildly glanced away from the soapy water, a wild look on her face. “How -”

“I look at his father much the same way.”

“I -” She feels like a fish out of water - it’s one thing to think about crossing that line between them, to think about reaching over the table when they discuss plays and make plans about the upcoming games. To think about what it’d be like to wake up next to him, to think about pre-game kisses and post-game moments. But to label on it… 

“He is big and strong but he is going to need someone.” (They both know she’s talking about his knees, about how upstairs management at the Padres are looking at their options.) “Everyone needs someone. Do not be scared.”

Ginny shook her head, a soft, slightly delirious laugh leaving her lips. “I’m not scared.”

“Life moves fast, Ginny.” She laughs softly. “I should know. You don’t want regrets.”

* * *

Half an hour later, Ginny waits by the front door, half dead on her feet and full of home-made food, with even more leftovers tucked under her arm.

“Ma, I don’t - I gotta get Ginny home.” 

Iriana’s hand slaps against his shoulder. “I have to leave before you get back so listen. It’s all in there.” Her finger taps against his heart. “Everything you need to know. Do what it tells you.” Iriana glances meaningfully over his shoulder at where Ginny stands, yawning loudly. “Now get that girl home before she passes out on your living room floor,  _anak iblis_.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** rachel's thoughts on mike and ginny??

Seeing the bronze skinned rookie pitcher and her ex-husband laughing in the tabloids shouldn't bother Rachel Andrews, but it does.

The ring resting on her her left hand, heavy and sparkling, reminds her she has no use thinking about Mike and Ginny and all that they are, but here she is.

Checkout line at the supermarket, bored minimum wage worker and tabloid in her hands.

GINNY AND MIKE: MORE THAN FRIENDS? is splashed across the page in near obsecene size and colour. Her lips purse as she glances over the images, Mike with his arm tossed around Ginny's shoulders, both of them laughing; Ginny running ahead in the park, Mike watching her with near adoration; Ginny running up behind Mike, jumping onto his back and demanding a piggy back ride. He looks so utterly unlike the man she married all those years ago - and it's not just the lost weight or the trimmed beard which really, is more like thick stubble these days... he looks like a whole new Mike and Rachel doesn't like it.

She's used to one version of him; used to understanding the reactions and feelings of a man who just wanted to play baseball and put that damn sport above everything else in their life (like their marriage or kids or even coming home for fucking dinner. She never needed to be number one on the list, but making it within the top fucking 10 would have been nice).

It occurs to her all of a sudden, that Rachel is jealous. Of course Mike would go for the younger model, go for the girl who makes him feel young again.

Of course he'd go for the girl who loves baseball just as much as him, if not more - for he knows that he has the same priorities as her. Baseball first, baseball is what matters. Having each other is just a perk.

(Rachel hates how even though she's happy with David and they're thinking about kids now and she has near everything she's ever wanted... - Mike still lurks like a ghost. She hates how a part of her will always be competing with him to be better than baseball. But most of all? Most of all she hates how he's found a girl he could very will give the game up for.)

Her lips purse and she near throws that tabloid back to the stand, mad she stooped to the level of gossiping about her ex-husband. They'd moved on, the both of them.

It was start to acting like it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** mike retires from the mlb, but still comes to every one of the padres games. people think he'll just sulk in the back, but he's front and center, wearing ginny's jersey and screaming his head off.

In the end, it’s his orthopedic doctor that sits him and down tells him he’s gonna have to throw in the towel or there won’t be much of his knees left to even stand on, let alone walk on.

“You had a better run than most, Mike, trust me on that.” He merely nods, knowing this with every part of his soul, but a part of his heart still aches at not crouching behind that diamond on game day. It just won’t be the same.

When he announces, loudly at that, he’ll still be showing up for his team, his family, they try to get him to sit in the VIP box with the other girlfriends and wives and various other figures. But Mike can’t bring himself to do so. He didn’t fall in love with this game sitting in VIP boxes where he can’t always see the plays and he can’t feel the energy of the crowd humming around him. He fell in love with this game in that crowd, eating peanuts and loudly cheering and trying to catch a flyball when it went to the outfield.

He may not be able to play the game anymore, but he’s still going to enjoy it the way he always has.

Mike only has one request to Carl - get him tickets where he can see Baker. No matter where they are, he wants to see her. (Not because he finally got his shit together and told her he loved her anything, but because watching that rookie - and she’ll always be rookie to him - watching her is always the best part of the game for him. It starts and ends with her.)

The Padres’ first game without Mike Lawson is a bittersweet affair. Making his way down the steps, peanuts in hand, ‘Baker’ scrawled along his back right above that ‘43′ because as if he was going to wear anything other than her number to this first game. Coming to his row, the former catcher for the Padres comes to a stop, deeply inhaling. This is a moment - one of those life changing, altering moments. It’s so fucking different, seeing the game from this angle when he’s used to it behind the plate, when he’s used to see pitches fly at this face and not on a angle. He doesn’t hate it though… because if anything; it feels like coming home. Like he’s come full circle.

Mike settles into his seat, next to a small family that he’s proud to note is wearing Ginny’s jersey too and he offers them a smile. They don’t seem to notice he’s Mike Lawson or if they do - they don’t care. His gaze shifts to the field. The replacement catcher looks nervous, eyes shifting around the stadium while Ginny lazily flicks a ball from hand to hand, as if the noise doesn’t even phase her anymore. He wonders what their dynamic is like. Wonders if she wishes it was still him behind the plate.

(”Gonna miss me?” He asks quietly one night, fingertips trailing softly up the skin of her bare arm.

She presses a kiss to chest, snorting softly. “You here is infinitely better than behind the plate.” Ginny pauses. “But yeah - yeah I am.”)

The game falls into swing and within a handful of minutes Ginny strikes out three of the players that step into her box. When the fourth happens, Mike doesn’t even blink, rising and clapping so hard his hands sting.

“That’s what I’m talking about Baker!” He screams, and his heart soars when the crowd screams with him. Blip was right, all those years ago - that girl is his legacy. But she’s also the love of his life, and as he grins proudly at her, unashamed and uninhibited, he knows that he’s gonna marry her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** something about ginny and why she's got a thing for catchers, maybe?

It’s the eyes.

Staring across the gap of land between the home plate and the pitcher’s mound, eyes focused solely on another person - reading their facial cues, trying to see what they think before they even do…

It’s intense.

It’s exhilarating.

It’s a connection unlike any other and Ginny isn’t afraid to admit it turns her on.

Normally it isn’t a problem. She’s a big girl, and she can separate harmless feelings of attraction from what is reality. (Andre Holmes, for example, her catcher in Texas. She couldn’t get enough of on the field but off? Ginny wouldn’t have minded if his mouth was stapled shut for the rest of eternity.)

When Trevor Davis comes into her life, he’s the first who can actually hold a conversation with her. His charm dazzles her just a little bit and she likes that he’s persistent, likes that he can keep up with her and laugh at her jokes. (The heartbreak that follows their break-up in a deserted parking lot, however, reminds her of Andre. On the field and off the field - she has to seperate the two.)

And then Mike-fucking-Lawson happens.

At first Ginny assumes it’s just the regular attraction she feels; its the eyes she tells herself at night, it’s just the eyes. (She can’t look at him the morning after she dreams about blue eyes and callused hands. She overhears him asking Blip if he did something wrong, which - just isn’t helping her problem. At all.) It’s around the third time she can’t leave her regular feelings of attraction and exhilaration on the field that Ginny has an epiphany.

She’s crushing on Mike. **Badly**.

“Good game today, Baker.” Mike calls out, voice low so she knows he’s only offering it to her, and Ginny blearily looks up. (Her gaze _doesn’t_ catch on his mouth and the slight quirk and curve of his smirking lips.)

She swallows. “Yeah.”

He gives her a singular nod before he walks away, slightly whistling because Mike Lawson was nothing if not a fuckign enigma. Ginny exhales deeply, her mind whirling with her dirty thoughts and her overactive imagination. “…this is gonna be a _long_ season.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** mike and ginny going shopping for thanksgiving day dinner and arguing over what kind of potatoes to make or what pie is better, mike putting things in the cart that is absolutely not needed and ginny just scuffing and putting it back and little kisses in between shopping and ginny wanting to pick the perfect flowers for the table and YES 

****“No.” Mike states, arms crossed over his chest.

Ginny narrows her eyes. “Yes.”

“Baker, no.”

“Baker, _yes_.” She quips, just to be an asshole.

Mike shakes his head firmly, refusing to give an inch in the war they’ve somehow waded into. “We’re not getting pumpkin pie.”

Ginny squawks in indignation. “Why not?”

“Because we eat pecan pie.” He replied, as if it was the most obvious answer. A pause. “When we do American deserts that is.”

“Mike, come on -”

But he doesn’t hear, already pushing the cart down the aisle, heading away from Ginny and the pie she held in her hands. Huffing, she put the thing back in the fridge before jogging after him. Making a calculated move, Ginny bumps her hip against Mike’s.

“Move. I wanna push the cart.”

“You’re a child.” He mutters, off-hand and Ginny grins.

He still moves out of the way, surrendering the cart to her. They trail the aisles for a few moments, picking out the items they need for the Thanksgiving lunch slash dinner coming up. (His mom is flying in tomorrow, his father not long after that on account of the work conference he got caught up in. His sister is coming in the day of, having made plans with her girlfriend’s family. Her own brother is bringing his girlfriend and with the added pressure of their twins, Blip and Evelyn and their boys, not to mention Amelia — it was set to be a huge spread.)

Mike drops a tub of icing in the cart and Ginny narrows her eyes. “We don’t need chocolate icing.”

“Say Z gets her period again -”

“She likes burgers when she has cramps.” Ginny cut him off, smirking. “Like her _mom_.”

Mike huffed and put the item back. A few moments later, he dropped a box of popcorn in the cart, whistling innocently.

“Put the popcorn _back_.” When he doesn’t, Ginny merely levels him with a barely there glare. “You realize you’re the one being the child right now, right?”

Mike shrugged. “You find it endearing.” His hand wrapped around her wrist, tugging her closer to him. “Come here,”

He leant forward, pressing his lips to her own and God, she thinks - it’s just like it always is, like it was that first time on the field, champagne singing through her veins as she sat under the lights, fresh of a victory at the World Series. She remembers him coming up behind her - remembers the way he just leaned across and kissed her, even though she had a boyfriend and he was retiring next season. 

(Years later, she’s proud to say she chose the right man.)

Ginny breaks away, laughing breathlessly as if she’s a teenager making out with her boyfriend and not a thirty-something mother of two. “People are _looking_.”

“People are **always** looking.”

She grinned. “Fine, smart ass - people with cameras are looking.”

“You ruin my fun.” Mike pouted.

“Go pick flowers for the table. I’m not letting your sister do so again.”

They shudder together. (Everyone in the Lawson family remembers when Vanessa picked out flowers for the table, right after a pretty bad break-up. It was safe to say that was a fairly memorable Thanksgiving.)

“Smart woman, my girl.” He sighs before pecking a kiss to the end of her nose.

“You have no idea, Lawson!” She calls out to his retreating form.

One she’s sure Mike has headed in the direction of the florist, Ginny quickly darts back to the refrigerated section and picks out a pumpkin pie, hiding it under a few other items. (That’ll teach him.)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** mike helps Ginny with an asthma attack on a bus ride back and tries to deny that he researched for hours on how to help if she had another attack.
> 
>  
> 
>  **a/n:** this can be considered a sequel to the first asthma fic aka chapter one.

At first, Mike just tried to tell himself that it was because she was a member of his team. She was one of them, and Mike Lawson looked out for his own. (He can practically hear his mother’s smug, all knowing look in his head - that Ginny Baker is a ballplayer and one of them, sure, but there’s more too it and he knows it.)

He spent hours upon hours scrolling through the Web MD backlogs, before he got sucked into the Wikipedia vortex, freaked the fuck out, logged off his laptop for an hour and paced around his hotel room, fighting the urge to walk the two meters to Baker’s room and check her breathing habits.

(So his mother was right. Fucking sue him.)

It was made worse by the fact she’d had the flu the past week, and had only just gotten over it. He knows this because Amelia caught the flu right after and he, well - wasn’t gonna risk their secret hook ups getting blown because he caught the flu. And while Baker was sick, she still insisted on coming to the games - viewing, of course, from the VIP box. (Mike’ll never admit it, but it fucking sucked having Tommy pitch that week she was out.)

On the bus ride home from a particularly lovely (read: nightmare. He fucking hates playing the Dodgers sometimes.) game in LA, he forces Baker to sit next to him, eyes probing her every move, watching for the signs Web MD detailed. Did she need water, medicine? Did she have her inhaler? 

When her breathing starts to pick up, rapidly so, coughs following and sweat forming at her brow, Mike’s only _slightly_ glad he stayed up till 4am reading medical websites.

He reaches for her bag, hands shaking more than he’d like (more than they did the first time he played pro, more than they did on his goddamn wedding night), before he reaches for the zipper, tugging and fumbling through Ginny’s bag looking for her inhaler.

“Ginny.” Mike elbowed at her, eyes widening in panic. “Gin.” She startled awake finally, eyes going wide it occurred to her - and Mike tossed her the inhaler, followed by a bottle of water.

“You’re shaving years off my life here, rookie.” Mike exhaled, head leaning back against the headrest.

“Sorry.” She laughed weakly, voice still rough from the coughing and lack of air.

“Try to refrain alright? We at least gotta make it till the end of the season.” His words bely something else - try to refrain because if I have to watch you deprived of air one more time, he just might give away the depth of feelings in his gut for her.

“How - how did you know?” She questioned, coughing slightly. Her gaze shifted, looking at him curiously.

He frowned, playing dumb. “Know what?”

Ginny sighed, rolling her eyes in that brat like way of hers - a distinct reminder that she’s only 23, barely out of her teenage years, barely on the cusp of real life. “That I needed -” She mimed her inhaler.

Mike shrugged. “Guessed.”

Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Did you -” She coughed and Mike shot a pointed look at the water in her hand. She took a large sip. “Did you look it up?”

(She always had the annoying habit of being able to read him better than anyone else.)

Mike chewed his gum with a stiff jaw. “You’re one of the team, Baker. Least I could do.” He paused. “Besides. You die and I have to go back to catching for the gremlin. Figured I got a vested interest in you livin’.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **mikeginsanity:** mike and ginny have a baby girl who's so cool and they're both certain she has a future playing professional baseball and they're legit grooming her until she comes up one day and tells them she's going to become a cop and they both freakout because they 're worried she'll die before she's twenty five.

It’s not like they actually plan to groom Tessa for baseball or anything - Ginny had done that, had been the girl her father pinned his major league dreams on and it sucked. The emotional trauma she still deals with on the day to day is enough to convince Ginny and Mike as parents they’re gonna be different.

But when Mike gets hired as coach for the Padres and Ginny starts as a scout things get… complicated.

(Ginny takes her to matches, teaches her the plays, asks her opinion on the ladies she should scout for Daddy’s team. The image of Tessa sitting on top of Mike’s shoulders during games while he’s coaching goes so viral there’s rumours TIME magazine wants to put it on the front cover.)

They don’t mean to sign her up to little league offered through the club, but it happens.

They don’t mean to start having late night family practices, but they do.

They keep saying they don’t mean any of it — but who’re they kidding? They _do_.

“Mom.” Tessa states, snapping her fingers to bring Ginny out of her own world, reading whatever book she was.

“Yeah, hon?” Ginny replied distractedly. (Ginny Baker had never really lost the edge of beauty that tore through the MLB when she was 23. Time honed it, kept her features smooth and her skin clear; but her eyes, always the key to Ginny’s soul, lost that haunted spirit and angry undercurrent.)

Tessa, with all of her 18 year old brattiness and mother’s sass, rolled her eyes. “Where’s Dad?” Her lips pursed. “He uh - should be here for this.”

“Kitchen, most likely.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Mike!”

“Yeah?” His muffled reply came through the house.

“Living room!”

“Kay!”

A few moments later he emerged, a streak of flour covering his cheek. (Mike Lawson looked far different than the man who had ushered Ginny Baker’s career through the ages. Gone was the thick beard, instead in it’s place was a near permanent stubble. His hair now had flecks of grey at the temples and laughter lines around his eyes replaced the frown lines from his 30s.)

“What’s up, kiddo?” He questioned, throwing himself into the chair his wife occupied, despite her squawk of complaint. Mike didn’t even seem to notice he was half sitting on her.

Tessa barely blinked — those were her parents, still in love as much as they first day they met. Whereas her friends came from fractured homes, Tessa’s was still very much in tact. (She didn’t know what to do with that half the time, when her friends came over for sleepovers and found her parents cuddling on the couch, laughing in the kitchen — actually talking over breakfast — and those friends would look at her like she was a weirdo.) “So, you know how we sort of talked about me taking a year off after high school to think about my options?”

Mike shared a glance with Ginny. “Yeah..”

“Well, I think I’ve made one.” Her chin tilted up and Mike flashes back to that second night on the mound, that same steely determination - _you do this for you, you do this for your team or you don’t do it at all._ It still took his breath away, how much Tessa looked like her Mom somedays.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “Already?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “The Police Academy actually starts with early intake for school leavers and…”

Any sort of nostalgia or good will dropped from Mike’s face and Ginny, seeing it out of the corner of her eye, pursed her lips. “Police Academy.”

Ginny placed a hand on Mike’s thigh, digging her nails into him. A silent sign — cease. “Cops.”

Tessa fidgeted. “…Yeah.”

“Huh.” The world came out distinctly garbled and strangled.

“Dad -”

“Tess.” Ginny cut across her daughter. “Room. Now.”

She frowned. “But -”

“Now.” Ginny’s tone left no room for argument.

* * *

“A cop?” He questions, muttering, hands near seconds away from running through his hair.

“Hmm.” Ginny hummed, watching Mike pace back and forth.

“Don’t hmm - don’t.” He rounded on her eyes, narrowing - he hated when she did that when she was 27 and trying to piss him off; he hated even more so now that they were married. “You’re being _far_ too calm for this situation.” 

She quirked an eyebrow, wondering if he really believed that. (There was a fucking hail storm of emotions tearing through her right then - a million and one what if situations and possible worst case scenarios flying through her head, each one more worse than the last. Ginny Baker was anything but calm in that moment but she couldn’t let her husband clue into that fact.)

“We made a deal - one freaks out, the other stays calm. You,” She gestured at Mike. “Freaking out. Me,” She gestured at herself. “Calm.”

“She’s going to be around guns, Gin. _Guns_. That shoot. She’s going to be in danger everyday -”

“Technically, she’s in danger by being our kid.”

(They both remember the death threats that still show up every now and then - people still steadfastly against women in baseball, blaming Ginny for the whole situation even though there’s near equal numbers now. Or there will be, by the time Ginny’s done with this world.)

He looked at her. “That’s different.”

“How?”

Mike scoffed. “We can protect her -”

“Pretty sure they’re gonna teach her how to protect herself, too.” Ginny pointed out.

He glared, disbelief colouring his face. “You’re okay with this then?”

Ginny laughed bitterly and stood, her hands coming to rest on Mike’s chest. “Fuck no.” She shook her head. “M’aware of my own issues enough to want her to play baseball for the rest of her life — but. _She_ doesn’t want that.” Her eyes tipped to the ceiling where their daughter was probably pacing along the floor, calling that secret girlfriend of hers or even possibly contemplating jumping out the window and fleeing in the face of her parents’ tempers.

“My Dad, much as I love him, he forced baseball on me at times.” She looked back at Mike. “I won’t make that mistake with Tess.”

A heavy sigh blew past Mike’s lips and he ducked his head, leaning his forehead against Ginny’s. “I don’t like this.”

She snorted. “Not asking you too.” A pause. “But you do gotta respect her choice.“

(He did it once - respecting her choice to wait to have kids because she wasn’t done playing, respecting her choice to wait to get married because she wasn’t sure she wanted that after watching her parents’ own marriage implode. Respecting her choice when she dated Andre and Matty, despite knowing she was meant to be with him. He always respected her choices, even when he knew them to be wrong.)

"Yeah.” He exhaled roughly. “What would I do without you?”

“Die.” She snorted. “Live a happy, stress free life?”

“Damn, if I’d known _that_ I would have cut my losses earlier.”

Ginny reached out and punched him in the arm.

Mike laughs, grinning - the stress still lingered along his shoulders but not as much as it did beforehand. His gaze tipped to the ceiling. “Think we should let her off the hook?”

“…Nah.” Ginny snorted. “Let her stew. Serves her right wantin’ to be a cop and all.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **wickedfairytalewriter:** for the prompt thing anything bawson fluff pls? them sneaking around or maybe when they decide to go public?

**one.**

“We’ve gotta stop… this,” Ginny wheezes, falling back onto her bed with a flop.

Mike simply snorts and shoots a look over to Ginny before (with some great effort she proudly notes) pulling himself off the side of the bed and walking to the bathroom. Ginny unashamedly admires his naked form before sighing and turning her gaze back up to the ceiling of his apartment.

“I’m serious, we gotta stop,”

“Why?” He hollers back from the bathroom. Ginny rolls her eyes, he’s so stupid sometimes, she physically wants to throttle him.  "We’re not betraying anyone, we’re having fun. Where’s the harm?“ He grins as he comes back into the room. Ginny merely frowns at him, not speaking.

_Because. Because there’s something here that makes me feel just a little bit less alone than I am. Because I can see a future with you that has kids and dogs and I’ve never seen myself as having that kind of future before… because I think I’ve already fallen in love with you and I don’t know how to say it without everything blowing up around me._

The thing is this thing between them, the sex thing, between games and practices and everything else that comes with being a Padre - it was something of a stress reliever. It was supposed to be a way to keep a grip on their sanity, on blow off some steam so that they actually did get a good night’s sleep every now and then so that when they showed up for work, they weren’t at anyone’s throat. It wasn’t supposed to turn into a regular thing. It wasn’t supposed to even become a fucking **thing** in the first place, yet here they are. Fucking on the regular.

“I have a rule, Mike. No ballplayers. There’s a reason for that.” She trails off, biting the inside of her lip. And it’s not that she’s hesitant about Mike. If there’s anyone she’d want to do this with - it’s him. (Her trust of him isn’t exactly a novel concept -  there’s a reason she’s comfortable throwing fastballs for him and not the handful of other catcher’s she’s worked with over the years.) But on the other hand, there are so many ways that this could blow up in their faces and she can’t loose this game. It’s like her child. She doesn’t wanna lose her baby because she couldn’t stop herself from falling for her catcher and hopping into bed with him.

“First time for everything,” He smirks before diving in for another kiss. And _oh_ \- okay, maybe this whole falling in love with him and sleeping with him thing isn’t such a bad idea… not when he kisses her like that, at least.

**two.**

The thing is she doesn’t mean to be jealous. She doesn’t get jealous a lot of the time, mostly because it’s so fucking exhausting. Ginny has shit to do and training to get to that being jealous of who ever she’s sleeping with at that given point in time is just, well — pointless.

Trust Mike-fucking-Lawson to change that for her.

It starts like this: She drops by the field to see Blip to bug him about that trip back to Texas Evelyn had managed to rope her into.

(”Come on Ginny, don’t you wanna go and visit our old stomping grounds, do the things we weren’t able to do because you had a small stick up your ass?” She grins, mocking and teasing and fond all that once.)

She meant to see Blip and only Blip - bug him about actually going and re-opening old wounds when she decides, at the last minute, to stop by the cages off the left side of Petco Park.

(It’s not because she wants to see Mike. It’s not because they haven’t really spoken to each other since that fateful day when they decided that they’re actually **doing** whatever this is… it’s not because she gets a kind of thrill out of seeing him catch and okay, maybe she’d possibly been missing him the last few days, but. Details.)

So, she cuts across the park and somehow walks right in on the moment she really would rather not see.

Rachel, hand on Mike’s arm, tears in her eyes, looking so utterly broken and pathetic it sends a pang through her heart — which, fuck empathy, seriously.

Ginny is aware of the damage that Rachel inflicted on Mike. She’s aware that his womanising ways post divorce is because of his own self-loathing and the fact he didn’t feel good enough; and that what he was doing was just a way to stop the pain for the time being - she’s aware. Which is why it makes her so damn mad to see Rachel, ring on her finger, using him like that. Mike was her friend before she started sleeping with him, and she’s protective of her friends — but it’s not till she’s about twenty minutes into her plan to storm their conversation and loudly kick Rachel out of Petco that she realizes.

She’s _jealous_.

**three.**

“How do you know you’re in love?” Ginny murmurs, eyes not focused on any particular thing. Evelyn, previously chattering away stops and she looks up at Ginny, lips pursed.

“Lots of ways, why? You think you’re falling for Lawson?”

Ginny’s eyes snap up to Evelyn, confusion in her gaze.

Evelyn rolls her eyes. “Please, give me some credit.” She sighs, because Christ, she’s right, how can they keep this whole thing a secret anyway? Their stars are on the rise, and fuck, it’s almost guaranteed to come out, isn’t it?

“I don’t know.” Ginny says after a moment. “Maybe.”

Silence descends on the room, and Ginny feels like it’s strangling her. The both of them know what happened last time she fell for someone like this. (Her nudes were leaked all over the internet. Yeah, she wasn’t happy her attempts at spicing up a relationship ended up nearly ruining her career for whatever stupid reason, either.)

“Love is…” Evelyn sighs, “…coming home. It’s like coming home after a long trip. Do you feel that with him?”

Ginny is silent and Evelyn smiles softly; already knowing the answer.

**four.**

No matter how many times you go to an All-Star game, Ginny muses, it never stops being terrifying. It’s her third All-Star game, and she feels miles different from the young woman she was previously. She’s not the young woman who wanted to turn down a slot because she was paranoid about fitting in, she’s not the young woman who had to be told to take the damn pity date

It’s Mike’s last game. (Ginny cried for an hour when she learnt she was retiring. He hugged her for that whole time, too, gruffly muttering about how she wasn’t allowed to break _now_ , after everything.)

She’s aware that the All-Stars game is a thing in the baseball world: the best of the best play the best of the best, petty rivalries put aside to just have some good old fashioned fun. But here, now, standing off to the side, the dull, the ever telling roar of spectators in her ears, she’s shit-fucking-scared. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Blip loosing his collective cool, the rull roar getting to her.

“You okay?” Mike quietly asks, coming to stand behind her left shoulder, because he gets it - but she can’t respond because then the roar gets really, really loud and it’s time.

She opens her mouth to respond, say no, no she really isn’t when it happens — are they chanting her name? Mike shoots her an amused look.

Her head quirks to the side. “I gotta -”

Mike winks. “Knock em dead, slugger.”

Her name’s announced and she walks out, waving, her cap firmly on and she can feel Mike’s eyes on her and Evelyn;s smirk but none of that matters because this game, this saving grace, is loved as much as she loves it and oh god. She’s made it. (She’s had that thought before but it’s different now — she’s way more accepted than she previously was.) Ginny takes her spot next to Mike and the crowd’s roar reaches her painful levels. (Mike Lawson’s retirement was the number one story anyone was talking about for weeks on hand: his naming to the All Star team just served to only heighten the whole experience.)

“Here we go,” Mike mutters in her ear, warm breath stirring over the curve of her ear.

 _We contain multitudes_ , Ginny thinks, reaching her hand out to squeeze Mike’s shoulder, _We contain multitudes and I’m so in love with you it’s not even funny anymore._


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **insomniabug:** there's a kid's carnival day at the stadium and mike is in the dunk tank. And a little bit of a bet that Ginny can't hit the target from a certain distance. Shenanigans.

The kid’s carnival day the week before the 4th of July was something Ginny’s been looking forward too for weeks now. She had been bugging at the seams to spend the day under the San Diego sun, shorts on, hair out, lemonade in hand and being on the field for enjoyment; not obligation.

She gets to Petco about a half an hour after the whole event starts, stalled by downtown traffic in LA. (Sometimes she really hates driving.)

The DJ loudly plays his playlist — Ginny can’t help gently swaying to the beat of the DNCE song that blares through the speakers. She glances around the stadium, nodding. San Diego really turned out today, for their Padres. It sends a jolt of pride through her, knowing she’s a part of a family yeah, but she’s also apart of a community.

The pitcher winds her way through the stands selling gear, the silent auction and the stands selling food and drink, waving to those she knows and leaning down to sign a few autographs and take a selfie or two. When she catches glimpse of Mike in the dunk tank, swinging his legs back and forth aimlessly, watching as a kid attempts to throw a baseball at the target in question. Her lips press together and she has to blink at least twice. Who’d have thought Ginny Baker would ever catch sight of Mike Lawson waiting to be dunked by that lucky number one?

Kicking her feet through the grass, she walks on over, grin on her lips. “What’d it take to get you up there?”

“Three beers and a naked Victoria’s Secret model.” Mike quipped without even blinking, turning to flash Ginny a grin with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

GInny snorted. “You’re a child.”

“You love it.” He winked.

She opens her mouth to reply, before her name is called out by Evelyn, waving her over to the pie stand. She turns back to Mike, throwing a thumb over her shoulder.

“I’m needed over at the pie stand. Catch you later, alright?”

“Sure thing.” Mike nodded. “Hey - make sure to throw one at the Gremlin for me!”

Ginny laughs, even as Tommy lets out loud ‘ _Hey!_ ’ from where he stands, head poked through the holes for human targets.

* * *

The thing is, she can feel Mike’s eyes on her the whole time, be it when she bends down to take pictures or sign autographs or help with the egg race. She can tell when they’re travelling down the length of smooth bronzed skin on display that’s normally covered up by jeans or tights. She knows that they’re heading to something, if their late night phonecalls are anything to go by. 

(It’s no longer just about venting anymore, or catching up on their plays or anything like that. They talk now, like friends, best friends do. They fell asleep once and when Ginny woke, screen plastered to her face and phone at 3% battery, Mike softly snoring through the tiny speaker — she couldn’t help but want to wake up to that sound everyday.)

* * *

“If you didn’t get the Gremlin, we can’t be friends anymore.”

Ginny snorts, rolling her eyes as she levelled a look at Mike. “Relax old man, I got the Gremlin.” Her chin jerks at the sight of Tommy, covered in pie and attempting to clean it off with a towel. He wasn’t having much luck.

“Good girl.” Mike nodded and tossed her a wink. “We’ll make a Padre outta you yet.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Anyone got close to dunking your ass yet?”

“Dry as a bone.” He grinned, proud.

“Hey Baker!” Blip calls out from where he stands, one one sitting on his shoulders and the other leaning against his hip.

“Ya!” Ginny calls, glancing over.

Blip throws a ball up and down. “Wanna give this a shot?”

“Twenty on Ginny not making it.” Tommy quips, just to be an asshole as he walks over, now free of pie. They’re friends of course, and more often than not they’re teaming up to make Mike’s life a living hell, (a memorable moment when they filled his locker with condoms comes to mind) but still. What’s a friendship without a good amount of roasting.

Blip narrows his eyes. “Forty on her making it.” Bless that sweet black yoda, Ginny muses, bending over to pick up a baseball from the basket to the side. The warm San Diego sun beats down on her casual Padres shirt — but the **43** is still clear as day to anyone who glances at her.

“With odds like that, who could turn this chance down?” She drawls, hearing Mike’s sharp laughter over her shoulder.

“Come on rookie, get to throwin’ already.” Mike taunts, shifting slightly forward on the seat. Poor asshole, Ginny muses, shaking out her wrist. He’s probably had to sit up there all morning, bored as fuck.

“Do I need to give one of my world famous pep talks again? Aim your pitches, aim to please?” He yawns, loudly and Ginny contemplates just running over and pressing the target.

“You know what Tommy, I think I’ll get in —”

She pitches the ball, watching with a grim satisfaction as the ball curves near perfectly though the air, landing a perfectly against the target and subsequently, dunking Mike Lawson into the water.

(Later she’ll learn that Elliot had the sense to film the whole exchange and upload it to the Padres’ twitter account. It was safe to say the internet went ape shit over the whole thing.)

She walks over, head quirking, taking far too much glee and joy at the sight of Mike surfacing from the ank, shaking his hair out, blowing water this which way and that. It’s an amusing sight and Ginny can’t help but laugh. “That’ll teach you to bet against me again.” Ginny grins and reaches across the edge of tank, plastering a kiss against Mike’s wet cheek. “Old man.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **ourstartingpoints:** hi! can you write ff based on [this post](http://ginnyspitch.tumblr.com/post/151688965984/ok-question-time-if-and-i-hope-they-do-make) "mike showing up at ginny’s doorstep, all soaking wet..." Thank you! :)

When she finally gets around to watching the Fox after-show footage, Ginny thinks she might actually plan Oscar’s murder.

She gets that it’s the sport and that this is the life and the Cuban (Ginny refuses to learn his name. Won’t learn his name till Al sits her down and says this is her new catcher and even then she’s probably going to fight the process. There’s only one catcher in her eyes worthy of standing behind the Padres’ home plate, no matter what Mr. Smooth Cuban went through.) is where the future lies for their team.

She gets that. She lives that. She knows that as a ballplayer, her life and her roots solely depends on the whims of old white guys who make more money in a month and she does in a year. 

That doesn’t mean she has to like it.

Her lips purse and she glances out of the window of her apartment, sighing as the rain beats against the window, unrelenting and unforgiving. A part of her wonders how Mike’s handling this; he was just confronted about the mortality of his career on live television, without even a warning about the upcoming shit storm… he can’t have been doing well.

A knock sounds at her door and Ginny glances at it, frowning. Her eyes dart to the clock, and it’s nearing midnight, meaning whoever’s here is known to her security detail and has a damn good reason to be here.

Shuffling through her living room, she picks up the items of clothing she sees (fucking sue her that she was in nothing more than her underwear, watching TV from her bed when she couldn’t sleep), going for the plain grey sweats and the Mike Lawson Padres pull over she’s had since she was 16 and has honestly, seen better days.

Pulling the door open, Ginny half expects to see Amelia on the other side or her Mom or her brother — not Mike Lawson, soaking wet, hair floppy and drops of rain clinging to his neatly trimmed beard.

“Mike…”

“It’s over.” Two little words and Ginny’s world bottoms out — and she’s just his pitcher. Imagine what it would be like for him.

“Come on. Inside.” She moves out of the doorway. “You gotta be freezing.”

Closing the door behind the two of them, Ginny gestures at her messy living room before she heads for her laundry. She chucks a clean towel in the drier for five minutes, warming it up before heading back to the living room, where Mike’s shedded his jacket — and if Ginny is right, his hands are shaking, slightly shivering. Wordlessly, she wraps the warm towel around his shoulders, before shifting to sit in front of him on her low coffee table. (The thing was all wood and artsy and sturdy as fuck. She has no qualms about sitting on the fucking thing.)

“You know I always say it coming. I’m not stupid.” He shakes his head and burrows deeper into the heat from the towel. “I’m not some dumb jockhead who thinks he’s invincible — I knew this day was coming. I have the knees of a 65 year old of course I was gonna have to tap out at some point.” A bitter laugh falls from his lips.

She remembers as a kid, when she couldn’t sleep, staring up at his poster and just — talking. Her low voice lilting through the night, she remembers talking to him about the game, about how she loves it so much even though people thinks she doesn’t, how she hopes one day she’d get to meet him and tell him all about the drive and hope and ambition he instilled in her.

It hurts now — to see that invincible fearless man from her wall, sitting in front of her, broken down and anguished because he’s not down with the game, yet the game is seemingly done with him.

“Listen to me, okay?” Ginny moves to the edge of the coffee table, till her knees press against his own and their faces are parallel. His eyes won’t meet hers. “Listen.” She says more forcefully, curling her hand under his chin and directing his gaze to her own.

“You once told me I can’t aim my pitches if I’m aiming to please everyone.” A watery smile is offered and she’s proud to note that Mike returns the gesture. “You can’t catch everything, you can’t see everything coming at you, Mike.” She’s not as good at this as he is; she struggles with words when it’s not to do with baseball or proving her self-worth; she prefers actions to mark the important moments but right now, Mike — her Mike, — he needs both.

“Things happen. Life happens.” Ginny swallows roughly. She knows all about life and it’s insanities and how no matter what you wish or hope for or dream — none of it ever makes any fucking sense. “We can’t signal to the pitcher and control the arc of a ball. That’s not how it works.”

“But no matter who Oscar sticks behind that plate come next season — you will always be my catcher, okay? Always.”

Her finger curls under his chin, tipping his face down towards her (because even at this angle, she’s still shorter than he is) and before she can really think about the consequences of what she’s doing, of what she’s about to do, Ginny ducks her head and presses her lips against Mike’s.

Kissing him isn’t what she thought it’d be like. She’s human enough and woman enough to admit that she’s fantasized about this — in the wee hours of the morning under the cover of darkness, when she doesn’t have to worry about being Ginny Baker ™ and she can just be a girl with feelings and crushes, a girl who’s living out her dream right alongside her childhood heroes.

Her lips slide along his own and after a moment, Mike exhales slightly, his lips opening up under her own and it feels like everything and nothing at the same time. (She never thought it could be like that.)

“Took you long enough.” He mutters, pulling back just enough to get the words out.

“Seriously? I -” She protests before Mike grins, shaking his head and reaching up again.

“Shut it.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **spartanlady16:** someone asking mike if he is upset ginny had a baby girl, and shenanigans ensue.... bonus points for velociraptor.

At age 39, Mike likes to think he knows himself pretty well. Impulsivity, going off script in front of media types? Not something that’s gonna change at this age.

He’s at pre-game media conference, before their last push for the playoffs or a wild card selection and honestly? Mike’d rather be at home. He’s got a three week old beautiful baby girl that he could be with right now, a beautiful bundle of joy that’s away from because Oscar decided that he was meant to lead the team in the event of Al’s retirement. (Don’t get him wrong — he’s thankful for the job. He loves coaching more than he could ever love being a talking head on Fox Sports and at least this way he’s not gonna get his ass kicked for sprouting stats… — he’d just really rather be with his fiancee and daughter right now.)

“So, Mike — your fiancee just gave birth to a girl, how does it feel knowing you might never raise the next David Ortiz?”

Mike’s eye twitches. It’s shit right there that has Mike wondering why the fuck he’s still even in this business. (Four new female recruits in the last three years and people are still comparing their achievements to that of men — still thinking of them as well. Mike wants to shove Ginny’s last round of batting averages down their throats and smirk like, _yeah, my girl just had a baby and she did **that**._ )

“Who the fuck says my daughter can’t be the next David Ortiz?” The room quiets with the use of the swear word, but Mike’s so far past caring at this point, he doesn’t even notice. It’s a new found protective instinct that sprung to life in the last however many months since Ginny’s belly popped at he felt Savannah kick for the first time; he was willing to do anything for Ginny before her pregnancy but the whole thing just increased ten fold to include their daughter.

“My fiancee just gave birth to the most adorable kid and she’s — it’s only been a handful of _weeks_ and she’ already making plans for her comeback game in two seasons time. Far as I’m concerned that’s **more** than anything Ortiz could ever pull off.” (The press doesn’t know the details of Ginny’s pregnancy, of course — how she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and how the doctor sat her down and told her she had to find a way to cut the stress or she was gonna loose the baby. He had never been more scared in her life and when the two of them made the mutual decision for her two take the next two years off; he’ll always remember the way he held her as she cried that night.)

“Furthermore, there are four women on my team and three of them are starting line-up in an hour. And a lot of you in this very room said that’d never happen. A lot of you said Ginny Baker was a one trick pony and a gimmick to sell tickets.” His eyebrows raise and he swears — he swears he sees the reporter swallow nervously. "So pardon my language and everything, but — fuck you. My daughter can be whatever the hell she wants to be, and you know what? I hope one day she takes the field just to prove to your sorry ass she can beat a ten-time All-Stars records.”

He stands, tugging his cap low over his eyes. “Press conference’s over. See you all after the fact.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** “we’re in a breakfast club style all day detention” au bawson pls

The first thing Ginny does when she shows up for detention is break into the snack machine because if she knows Principle Al Luongo (and Ginny does, the man was her godfather, for christ’s sake) — he always locks the damn thing down an hour after detention starts meaning Ginny’s not gonna be able to get her M&Ms fix when they let them free for lunch in a few hours.

It’s how Mike Lawson finds her — picking the lock on the vending machine with a bobby pin because they have the old school style lockscreen ones in their shitty ass high school three miles north of San Diego.

“Long time no see, Baker.” Mike drawled, coming to rest against the brick wall next to the vending machine, drinking her in with that dark probing look of his. (She still hates that look almost as much as she did when she first met him.)

Ginny’s eye twitched “Some would say not long enough.”

(This is what happens when you make-out with a dude at a party, drunkenly admit you’ve been crushing on him for three months, him to **agree** that you should date, only for said dude to show up to school the next day, his ex-girlfriend back on his arm. It’s been two months since that whole incident and Ginny’s still yet to forgive him. Or accept it. She refuses to accept that one minute Mike Lawson’s pressing her up against the door of hid bedroom, one hand on her breast, making her moan and telling her he likes her and wants her, only to get back with Rachel’s cheating ass that Monday. No one changes that fast.)

“What’d you do?” She questioned after a moment of silence, teeth tugging on her bottom lip. She doesn’t notice how his gaze stays trained on the tiny action.

His lips pursed. “Kicked Tommy Miller in the balls. You?”

Ginny shrugged. “Punched Trevor Davis.”

A moment later Ginny huffed, deciding to throw the idiot a bone.

“You want anything?” Her nails tapped against the the glass of the machine.

He raised an eyebrow. “You gonna fight me for the peanut M&Ms?”

“That depends. You gonna let me have the peanut butter cups?”

* * *

“I see you got into the vending machine.” Al grumbled twenty minutes later, eyeing the two students as they mowed through the snacks in the library.

“Yup.” Mike grinned, popping the ‘p’.

His eyes narrowed. “Is that all the criminal activity I can expect from you two today?”

“Probably not.” Ginny shrugged.

Al sighed. “…Try not to break anything, Baker.”

* * *

“She was cheating on you?” Ginny asked softly, her fingertips tapping at the cigarette and getting rid of the ash. They’d broken out of the library an hour ago, retreating to the roof for a smoke.

He huffed, gaze tipping to the sky. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mike shrugged, hand scrubbing over the back of his neck as his other gestured for the cigarette. “Happens.”

Ginny exhaled the milky grey smoke, handing the cigarette over to Mike. “Shouldn’t have.”

“But it did.” His lips pursed. “Maybe I deserve it. Was never around anyway.”

“Mike…” Ginny huffed a breath and crossed her arms over her chest as she looked at him. “— I don’t know who told you that you were a bad guy, but someone did.” 

Mike’s head snapped to look directly at Ginny. And the look on his face; god. 

“Somebody or something told you and convinced you that you were a bad guy. And I think… you do all these things, trying to prove you’re not the bad guy when in reality, anyone who looks at you can see that you aren’t.”

“How - how are you single?” He questioned, disbelief lacing her words.

“Truth?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, lie to me.”

Ginny pressed her lips together, glancing up at the late afternoon sky. “Cause you never asked me out.” Silence. Ginny smirked, glancing back at Mike. “Kinda blew you away, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you really did.” Mike breathed.

The door to the roof slammed open and Al burst out, glaring at the two students. “Baker! Lawson! It’s 3pm and I have somewhere to be, so I think we can call this a day. Don’t wanna see the two of you back here again.”

Ginny smiled and dropped the cigarette butt, screwing it under the toe of her shoe. “See you around, Lawson.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **littlestarwellnotsolittle:** so, has any sent in a prompt where Mike sees Ginny in her wedding dress bc she's marrying someone else.
> 
> [ginny’s dress here.](http://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/BHLDN/37595295_011_a?%24zoom-xl%24)

It’s just, — he always thought it’d be him in the end. He always thought somehow that they’d get their shit together and find their way to each other in a sense that wasn’t pitcher and catcher, rookie and veteran. Mike’s not stupid enough to know she felt it too, the connection that was thrumming between them. He could see it in her eyes whenever they got off the field, fresh off a win and high on adrenaline, or suffering a loss and low on morale.

(Her eyes, usually bright with life, seemed dimmer on those days. He always tried to make her smile and laugh throughout their friendship, not because he was the class clown — but because he caught on early. When Ginny Baker laugh, when Ginny Baker smiled, the rest of the team couldn’t help but follow through. She was infectious, painfully so sometimes.)

The news that Ginny Baker is set to marry Andre St. Patrick breaks on a Wednesday afternoon. Mike thinks his heart breaks that day. (Only love hurts like this.)

* * *

He wasn’t even gonna go, originally. TIll Ginny got wind from Miller that he wasn’t gonna go and Ginny started to get down which resulted in Evelyn sitting him down and laying out the riot act. (”I know this is hard for you, Mike and normally I wouldn’t ask anyone to put themsleves through this, but. This is her day and she’s gonna need you.” — He wants to ask why she’s gonna need him when she’s marrying someone else, but that feels like poking the bear, one too many times.)

* * *

Seeing her in the dress for the first time, it near takes his breath away, and any other filters he could have possibly had. (In the years to come, he won’t regret this moment. Of course, in the years to come she’ll be by his side and well, his, so it’ll be hard to regret anything.)

The dress for all intents and purposes is soft and understated. (Compared to what Rachel wore when she married him, Mike easily prefers what Ginny wears.) Her dress is vintage, a soft champagne colour. The lace bodice contrasts nicely against her bronzed skin and he thinks he sees a soft shimmer from glitter along her collarbones.  The skirt flares out in layers of tulle and fabric that soften the hard planes of muscle she’s built up over the years. He’s even proud to note she fought against Evelyn’s pleas that she had to wear heels, because it was her wedding day — instead, his eyes catch on a pair of silvery gladiator sandals. (That was his rookie, stubborn as goddamn rock.)

For all intents and purposes, Ginny Baker on her wedding day looks like the perfectly blend of bride and ballplayers — and it near fucking takes his breath away. (It’s why he can’t be blamed for what he says in five seconds.)

Out of the corner of his eye as he closes the door, he sees Ginny freeze, not expecting him to actually come up here to her suite. “I always thought we’d end up together you know?” Mike exhales, snorting, shaking his head and the whole notion of what he was saying. “We’d figure our shit out. Realize that you bein’ in San Diego and me back in New York, not around each other all the time… thought we’d realise we were meant to be in each other’s lives.”

(That’s what he realized at least. That he couldn’t live without her — didn’t want to live without her.)

“Mike…” Ginny exhales roughly, her head shaking. “ _Please_ , stop. Because if you keep saying these things, talking about what we could have been… I’m not gonna wanna walk down that aisle.”

Mike looks at her. She looks so different from the rookie that was called up however many years ago. He looks different too, shaving off the beard (a symbol he was done with the game) and losing weight in an attempt to lessen the pain on his knees. “You love him?”

She nods, once, sharply. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Still, somehow, despite the fact his heart feels like it’s just been pureed in a blender, he musters a smile for his rookie. “You deserve it, after everything.”

“You look… breathtaking, rookie. Just like you did when you took the mound for the first time.”

(He remembers that day, standing behind the mound, watching her and realizing that this — this moment right here, seeing a woman on that mound and not just any woman, but Ginny-fucking-Baker? His entire career in baseball had been worth it, getting to witness that peice of history happen in real time. It’s the most beautiful she’d ever looked, in his opinion — and _that_ includes the look on her face, post their drunken kiss after their World Series win.)

Mike offers her a smile, a nod, leaning forward and pressing his lips to her forehead. Ginny’s eyes slipped closed, relishing in the feel his lips against her own. (Their one drunken kiss, post-World Series flashes in her mind and she has to swallow roughly against the onslaught of emotions.)

The moment he leaves, Ginny’s face crumples and she has to press her hand against her stomach, press the emotions back inside of her, press her heart back together. (The one man holding her together for the last however many years just gave her away and she — only love hurts like this, didn’t it?)

* * *

“You love her, don’t you?” Blip mutters, standing next to Mike as the two watch bride and groom take the dancefloor. (Ginny had just had her first dance with Al, who’d stepped in in place of Ginny’s father. It was sweet, humbling even and Mike’s not ashamed to admit it near brought a tear to his eye.)

“Yeah.” He breathes, eyes catching on the shimmering fabric of her dress. His lips quirk in the small smile as she leans her head on her husband’s shoulder.   
“I really do.”

He inhales sharply. (It should have been him.) “Take care of her, alright?” His chin jerks at Ginny’s silhouette, before he turns to glance at Blip. “She’s gonna need someone.”

“You’re not staying?” Blip frowns.

A short bitter laugh falls from Mike’s mouth. “I just watched the love of my life marry another man, Blip. I can handle a lot of things but that? I need -”

“I got her.”

The two men share a nod, a moment of pure understanding. Mike turns, heading off into the distance, hands stuffed into his pockets. (He never notices how Ginny’s eyes never left him.)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** “i had a one night stand the night before i started a college class and WHOOPS I ACCIDENTALLY BANGED THE PROFESSOR” au for bAWSON

It was safe to say in that moment, Ginny was in her own twisted version of hell.

(This is the last time she ever listens to Evelyn Sanders when tequila’s involved.)

“Hi.” Ginny says hesitantly, gripping the textbook in her hands just a little bit tighter as she approaches his desk after the lecture is over. (It’s only a class of about 30 people, since their university is firmly of the small and private persuasion. Ginny’s lucky to even be here, thanks on account of her baseball scholarship otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to afford going here.)

Mike’s head snaps up, as if he can’t quite believe the woman he was fucking at 1AM this morning is here. In front of him. In his class. As his student. “Oh.”

Ginny snorts. She’s been there. “Yeah… you probably weren’t expecting to see me ever again were you?”

“Uh, yeah,” He says slowly, nodding slightly, “Can’t say I was.”

Awkward silence. Ginny gets it. It was supposed to be just one night — four shots of tequila and Evelyn’s voice in her ear about having a little fun before classes went back the next day. It was supposed to be a way to blow off steam so she was nice and chilled out for classes the next day.

It was not supposed to be this, that’s for damn sure.

“I’m — not gonna say anything about what happened. Between us.”

He nods slowly.“Okay.”

“You know, it was just sex, it happened, it was good, great even, but you know. I’ve this,” Ginny’s a rambler, is the thing — usually when she’s feeling the awkwardness pressing down on her like a weight. It’s a habit she picked up from her older brother and she loathes it; cool and calm cucumber Ginny Baker was a lot more attractive to deal with. “To deal with and you’re clearly, you know, got your own things to do.”

He nods again. — there’s a look in his eyes, Ginny notes, that he’s struggling to deal with this whole thing. That he’s trying to wrap his head around the fact he fucked a student last night and this morning. “Right. It’s a bad idea.”

Mike is silent for a moment and Ginny turns to leave, right when he speaks. “For the record, I’m not gonna say anything either.”

She glances over her shoulder, snorting bitterly. “Yeah. Getting accused of trading sex for grades really would put a damper on my junior year of college.” A sad smile blooms on her face. (What could they have been, in another life?) “I’ll see you around, Mik- Professor Lawson.”

* * *

She meets Evelyn at the bar an hour later, because only in San Diego does the college bar also double as the students breakfast and lunch hangout. Only in San Diego.

“I’m just saying,” Evelyn starts, again, for the third time, and Ginny tips her gaze to the sky. “You have his number, you could call him —”

“I can’t Evelyn, I literally cannot call him.” Ginny snaps, reaching for a fry and throwing the thing into her mouth.

The other woman’s eyes narrow. “Is your phone acting up again?”

“No.” Ginny snorts.

Evelyn throws her hands up. “Then why -”

“He’s a professor, okay?” Ginny hisses, leaning across the table so no other students hear her. “For my intro phys ed class.”

“Shit.” Evelyn deflates.  “I’m sorry.”

Ginny shrugs, tipping her beer bottle to her mouth. Sure, she had a lot of fun with Mike and it was great sex, and she was more than ready to call him again and maybe do something with actual clothes on, but. She can’t now. He’s a professor and she’s a student and she’s already on thin ropes as it is with her Mom’s own affair coming to light at the university — starting something with Mike is quite possibly the worst idea ever.

(None of those reasons make her want it any less.)

“He was just a guy, Evelyn.” She says, sighing but as Evelyn wraps an arm around her shoulder, Ginny is so utterly thankful that Evelyn could always read her a little too well.

* * *

Things were going fine, of course, — they’ve reached a truce. She sits in the back of the class, leans on other students for guidance so she’s not constantly in his face about the syllabus and the requirements. He only calls on her when it’s fucking necessary and that, that makes it all a little easier. — till Al approaches her about the extra credit internship project.

“It’d be good for you, kid, promise. Give you a chance to break into the industry a little earlier.

“Sure. Where do I go?”

“It’s under the new guy – Lawson?” Al frowns for a moment, shuffling papers around on his desk as he confirms the information. “Yeah, Lawson.”

And well, Ginny thinks, she knows _all_ about being **under** Mike Lawson.

“Right.” The word comes out strangled and garbled, not that Al notices it.

(She’s not sure whether to be thankful or sad that he doesn’t notice.)

* * *

Ginny knocks on the open door of Mike’s — Professor Lawson — office, hesitantly hovering in the hallway. He startles in his seat and from where she was standing, she could easily see he was watching the Cubs game instead of grading the papers on his desk.

“Ginny - uh, Ms. Baker.” He coughs.

She merely raises her eyebrows, amused despite herself.

A frown. “What are you doing here?”

She shrugged, shoulder leaning against the doorjamb. “Need the info packet for the internship program.”

Mike’s eyebrows raise in surprise, and he reaches for the packet in question. (There’s only one left and if that isn’t fate, Ginny isn’t sure what is.) “You’re applying to that?”

She levels him with a cool stare. “Is that gonna be a problem?”

His lips purse and he leans back in his chair. She really shouldn’t be so attracted to the fact he doesn’t back down in the face of her full on stare, Ginny’s dated boys who always gave her whatever she wanted when she turned that look on them, dated girls who got slightly scared at the sight of it too. It’s refreshing and wholly attractive and this whole thing is getting way out of hand.

“Didn’t peg you for it, is all.”

“Should I ask what you did peg me for?” She questioned, raising an eyebrow.

(They both know she’s referencing their conversation in the bar the night they met; how under the influence of one too many shots of tequila, she proclaimed she was one day, going to make it to the big leagues — that college ball was just the first step to that. He’s the second person in her life not to scoff at that dream of hers and it’s mostly for that reason alone she kissed him.)

“No.” Mike says after a moment of silence.

Ginny offers him a sad smile. “Figured.”

* * *

They reach a new sort of normal. They don’t talk about the fact he’s had her face between his legs, they don’t talk about the fact the fingerprint bruises from their encounter didn’t fade for weeks after the fact. They don’t talk about the fact he’s had her tongue in his mouth, or the fact she wore nothing but his shirt for the wee hours that they spent together.

But they do let up on the tension.

(It’s better and it’s worse all at the same time.)

“We’re breaking this.” Mike mutters one afternoon, a hand scrubbing over his eyes. She hates it too — that they have to be in the same room as each other while he advises her on the best way to win the internship program, hates that they were fine till Al opened his fucking mouth.

She sighs. “I know.”

“We can’t —” His head shakes.

“Would it be so bad?” She cuts across him, eyes wondering and curious and dare anyone say it — _pleading_. “I mean… if something this bad feels this **good** , it can’t be bad, right?”

Mike opens his mouth to say something, when there’s a knock at his door — and that, is how Ginny Baker learns Mike Lawson was married.

* * *

“So you’re married huh…” Ginny trails off, awkward. (What can she say? Witnessing her one time hook up and professor yell at his ex-wife in his office that he didn’t care what she had to say, he’d signed the divorce papers and therefore, his days of owing her anything were over.)

“ _Was_ , married.” He cuts across her sharply, sitting heavily down in his office chair.

She raises an eyebrow. “Can I ask why?”

Mike shrugs, far more casual than was possibly healthy. “Might have had something to do with the asshole in LA she was fucking.”

Ginny’s lips purse and she stands, grabbing her bag before swinging it over her shoulder. “Well, she threw away a good one.”

* * *

They kiss, drunkenly, after she wins the internship placement with the Padres. (Ginny has never felt more alive, the minute his lips touch hers.)

* * *

“We’re breaking this.” Mike mutters, half asleep and with an arm slung over Ginny’s bare back.

She snorts, burrowing deeper into the pillows of Mike’s bed. “Don’t care.”

“You’re very much indifferent to consequences, aren’t you?”

Ginny grins. “Keeps you young, old man.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** Idk of you could make anything of this but I would love to see something about Ginny doing a photo shoot, maybe something with the army green clothing Kylie has up on her ig?
> 
> [this is the image we're usin'!](https://www.instagram.com/p/BK_Vj4PA-mu/)

“This is fucking stupid.”

Mike snorted, turning his head to glance at what he thought was the stylist for this whole thing — then again, his knowledge of fashion was limited to _‘is it clea_ n’ and ‘ _does it fit_ ’. “Don’t tell that to the fashion guy. He might _cry_.”

Ginny scowled, tugging again at the bandeau bra like top they’d forced her into. “Good.”

A moment of silence, and Mike almost thought she was done with the self-loathing talk; maybe then he could nap in the corner, wait this whole thing out since he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. (Kudos to the rookie across from him, calling at 3AM to have a minor freakout about the photoshoot Amelia had forced her into for an interview spread.)

“I look so —”

“Military fresh?” Mike questioned innocently. He stood from the canvas, set-like seat they’d placed him into with a glare and muttered warnings about staying out of the way. “You _are_ having a military moment, I must admit.” His fingers reached out, tugging at the edge of her forest green jacket.

Ginny met his eyes in the mirror. “You aren’t helping.”

He snorted. “You invited me to this thing.”

“Remind me why I did that again?” She rolled her eyes.

He grinned. “Because my witty commentary keeps you young.”

“Your witty commentary makes me wanna take my bat to your face.” Ginny muttered darkly.

“Ginny, we’re ready for you now.” The assistant said before disappearing to the photoshoots actual area. Ginny merely huffed and turning.

“Hey,” Mike called softly, callused hand wrapping gently around her wrist and tugging her to a stop. “You like good, Baker. Seriously.”

Ginny nervously chewed on her bottom lip. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Mike winked.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** You've gotta do one where rachel sees a retired mike waiting with his kid outside the locker room for mom after a game. Maybe shes divorced again and realizing how happy he is

At age 39, Rachel Patrick ( _formerly_ Lawson and _formerly_ Andrews) is… not living the life she expected to be living. When she was still a Lawson, she expected herself to have kids and a retired baseballer husband who was coaching some team while she anchored a show on Fox. When she was still an Andrews, she didn’t expect much — just love and commitment and someone who was there.

She didn’t any of that and here she is — age 39, weekend anchor for Fox Sports (with the chance to go weekday or even weeknight), divorced twice, childless and living in an apartment that steadily feels more and more empty as the days go on.

She’s confronted with all of that, acutely so, one afternoon at Petco Park. Her boss had tasked her with writing an op-ed on the two new female recruits that had signed with the Padres — the team having become the home destination for female players, it seemed, — when she sees it.

Mike Lawson, waiting outside of the locker room, hand held by a four year old. A four year old with distinctly brown skin, eyes the colour of her ex-husbands and curls as wild as her mother’s. Rachel inhales sharply, because — because while she’d heard that Mike and Ginny Baker had gotten together, had had a child (the world lost it’s shit when the Padres pulled Ginny for two seasons because she was pregnant and wanted time off to recover and bond with her daughter)… it’s one thing to be confronted with such a reality.

“Papa!” The little girl — Tessa was her name, Rachel thinks absentmindedly, Tessa Lawson — tugs on her father’s hand pointing and bouncing on her feet. “Look! There’s Mama!”

Mike crouches down on his knees (the knee reconstruction apparently having done wonders), grinning as an arm wraps around her waist, pulling her to his side. “I see her little one.”

The smile on his face as he looks at his daughter nearly staggers her. It’s — it’s unlike anything she’s ever seen on Mike’s face before, unlike any other smile he’s ever shown her. And there it is, for the little girl clinging to him, for the superstar pitcher that’s currently jogging her way over to the family waiting for her. 

Rachel watches, frozen, as Ginny Baker ducks down, picking up her daughter, tickling her before reaching for her — What? Husband? Fiancee? The press hadn’t made any noise that Ginny Baker and Mike Lawson had gotten married, but she wouldn’t be surprised if they were. Mike, for all the stories about his sexcapades after their divorce, is a man who craves commitment and something that his solely his — why else would he have asked her to marry him after barely a year of dating?

That could have been hers, is the thing. She could have had that, if she just understood that the game was the be all, end all — if she was just happy enough with the life she had with him. Over the years she tried to tell herself that it wasn’t a life, to live like that and maybe she was right, but faced with the sight of her ex and his family?

She can’t help but regret every choice she’s ever made up that lead her to this point.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** Can you write one featuring Mike's "groupie on groupie crime" comment to Amelia from the promo. Maybe it forces them to have a real conversation and his feelings for Ginny comes in to play?? IDK

“Man I hate this groupie on groupie crime.” Mike huffs, emerging from his apartment behind Amelia, eyes catching on the destroyed side mirror.

Amelia pauses, eyes narrowing as she looks up from her destroyed mirror. “Did you just call me a groupie?”

It takes Mike a good two moments to even register what he’s said, let alone whom he’s said it too. “No. — No.”

Amelia’s eyebrows raise, and a strained smile blooms on her face. She’s being particularly jovial, if only to keep a grip on her temper. “Then what did you call me, Mike?”

The look on his face says it all — he said it, called her a groupie and it doesn’t even occur to her that perhaps, it just slipped out, was an automatic reaction to a situation he’s dealt with before. She’s too caught on the fact he even said it to her in the first place, when it’s clear she got here on merit, on her hard work, on her ability to be the best damn agent on the West coast, never mind the fact she’s never even stepped foot in the world of sports.

One hand comes to rest on her hip and she narrows her eyes at Mike. “So, for clarification. Are all the women around you groupies now?”

"Don’t be stupid.” A scoff. “Baker isn’t a groupie.”

"Christ.” She breathes, disbelief flooding her system. She casts a look at Mike, taking in how he seems to have frozen, mind whirring as he tries to figure out how to deal with this situation. A bitter laugh leaves Amelia’s lips. She thought he was different, is the thing — different from every other jock she’s ever gone out with and she’s not sure what to do with the knowledge that he might be like every other jock. “Why is it every woman in your life get the short end of the stick unless it’s Ginny Baker?”

Mike’s gaze snaps to Amelia’s. “Excuse me?”

But she isn’t looking at him, her gaze instead darting around the outside area of his house. “God I tried not to be that woman, you know? I tried to just let it slide, focus on the here and the now. Seperate us from her.” Amelia’s gaze locks with Mike’s. “But that’s not possible, is it?”

"Baker is…” Baker is what? A rookie pitcher with a nasty screwball and a smile made of gold? The one person he knows he can call at anytime of night, assured she’ll always pick up? The girl he’s taken under his wing? There are so many things that Baker is to him and he — he can’t pick anyone of them.

"I —” Mike’s head shakes imperceptibly, so quickly that Amelia would have missed it if she wasn’t looking for it.

"You have feelings for her, don’t you?” Amelia’s lips press together and there’s a part of her that hopes he’ll deny it — assure her that this is all just some big misunderstanding. That he doesn’t have feelings for Ginny and that the only one he wants is her.

(He doesn’t know if he has feelings for the rookie pitcher. He’s not sure he’ll ever know or ever be able to put a label on it. What he does know is there’s something there — something thrumming between them, simmering, waiting for the chance to bubble over. There’s something tying the two of them together, more than a regular pitcher and catcher attachment.)

Mike’s silence says all it needs too. Amelia feels as if she’s back in that IVF waiting room and her husband is leaving her: she hates it that somehow in the space of two years she’s right back to where she started.

"Fuck.” She swallows roughly. “I’m a placeholder. The closest you could get to her without being with her…” Another bitter, slightly hysterical laugh bubbles up the blonde’s throat. “Jesus. The business woman in me is you know, thankful that at least you didn’t you fuck with her career —” And there’s a silver lining to everything, right? At least he had enough sense to not screw with Ginny’s career, knowing that even any sight of feelings on his part towards her could spell the end of her career in the majors before it even began…

"Hey.” Mike cut across her sharply with blazing eyes. “I would never fuck with Baker’s career. Ever. Don’t you dare fucking suggest I would.”

Amelia’s lips press together and now — now it all makes so much fucking sense. She was blind and an idiot and if there’s one thing Amelia hates more than anything, it’s being those two things. Ginny and Mike are inevitable.

A sad, small smile quirks at the edges of her lips. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever been honest with me.”

“Amelia I never meant —” Mike rushes to say.

“I know.” She nods her head once. “But you did anyway.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** A couple of times Mike tells himself he's just protecting his rookie and one time he realizes it's something more. I love in denial Mike and I love "oh my god I love her" Mike as well!

At first he thinks the best thing to do is to just acknowledge it. Yes, Baker is a pretty girl and yes, he’s one of the many of men populating this country that finds her attractive. But that’s it. He’s not going to do anything about it because there’s nothing to be done.

Baker is his rookie, his pitcher, the girl he’s taking under his wing, who just so happens to be a damn fine sight to see on that mound. (Way prettier than having to stare at Miller’s mug every night, that’s for damn sure.)

Mike should have known, however, that he’s always been a terrible liar when it comes to Ginny Baker.

* * *

Her private photos are released on a cold blustery day. (The weather guy says it’s an off day, a freak storm coming down from the Alaskan coast and that San Diego will be back to nice summer weather tomorrow.) Mike finds her squished in between packaged boxes of peanuts, hiding from the world, and what he suspects, herself.

He finds her in that same place he once told her she was blowing him away, stuffed against boxes of peanuts and random containers of lost property. The sight she paints, it near breaks his heart. His rookie, his Ginny Baker — normally so strong and resilient in the face of everything and anything the world could possibly throw at her… — here she was, stuffed away, hiding with tears pouring down her face, a crumpled expression and pain filtering through her eyes.

“You okay?” His lips purse, eyeing the silvery tear tracks on her face.

A bitter snort leaves her lips. “Does it look like I’m okay?”

Mike raises an eyebrow. “We in a rhetorical question mood today, are we?”

(She and Miller once spent the whole day acting like that; responding to everything he ever said with a rhetorical question — drove him fucking nuts to the point where he almost considered calling his agent and tasking him with getting the fuck out of dodge lest he go all Jack Torrance on their asses.)

“You know, I get that this is a sort of moment where we banter and you cheer me up after exchanging some witty barbs, but I’m really not in the mood today, Mike.”

He inhales sharply, the way he always does when she forgoes Lawson or Cap and uses his first name. It does something to him, is the thing, and he’s not quite ready to unpack what that something is so he ignores it. Instead he shuffles in next to her, sliding his back along the cold concrete wall. 

He loops an arm over her shoulders, attempting to pull her into his side. “Come here.” He mutters gruffly.

And because this is Ginny and because she always has to fight back, always be on guard, always be tough, even around people she knows she can let those walls down around — she pushes against him, even as the tears flood her eyes. “No, I - I don’t,”

“Come here.” He says firmly, his eyes catching with her own.

She deflates against him, head falling to the crook of his shoulder and she cries — cries against him, loud gasping sobs that only serve to have him hold her tighter. As if squeezing her tight enough will keep out all of the pain the world, protect that smile of hers from ever dimming.

(Tommy finds them first, Baker passed out against him while Mike wonders when the last time was that she got some decent sleep. Tommy levels the two of them with a hard look before nodding — Mike’s silently thankful they don’t have a game today and Tommy has Baker’s back.)

* * *

That night, staring up at the ceiling of his home, he repeats his mantra: she’s his rookie, his teammate and he looks out for those on his team. Nothing more, nothing less.

* * *

At some point she stops being Baker and rookie and starts being Ginny. It’s a problem, espeically when it comes to media conferences.

“Mike, Mike!” His eyes dart to the reporter, nodding once.

The reporter launches straight in. “What can you say to the rumours that your rookie pitcher is fighting off injuries and is looking at a painful season?”

Mike’s eye twitches and he contemplates coming across the table for the fucker. A year since Ginny was called up and still — it doesn’t even matter that yeah, she is fighting off pain on her landing leg and this season is gonna be tough but she’s gonna make it because she’s Ginny fucking Baker and he backed her a long time ago. But none of that matters because she’ll always be that rookie pitcher to the hardline baseball purists.

“For starters she’s got a name and that’s Ginny Baker — and I know you know it because you askin’ me bout her for near a year now.”

A good natured rumble of laughter filters through the reporters.

“Second to that — you wanna ask Ginny about her health, go right ahead. But expect her to knock you on your ass when you do.”

* * *

Objectively, Mike always knew Ginny was going to start seeing someone. A smart, talented, young woman in the peak of her life and fame? Of course it would happen — there was no way she was going to be single for the rest of time.

He just didn’t think he’d have a front row seat to the whole thing.

His lips purse as he eyes the basketballer chatting up one of the siblings of the other boys before, in a spilt second choice — makes his way over. She’s his rookie and as a member of the Padres, it’s his job to make sure those takin’ em out are good enough for his team. That’s what it is. Just ensuring that Ginny’s heart doesn’t get broken and their three game winning streak doesn’t take a downturn.

“Yo, with me kid.” He gestures at the other dude and as they reach their own little spot, Mike levels the punk with a blank look.“I’m not gonna threaten you because frankly, Ginny doesn’t need that and second, she’d kick my ass three weeks from Sunday if she found out, so I’m gonna say this.”

(She would, too — if there’s one thing Mike’s learnt over the time he’s known Ginny, it’s that she just wants to be _normal_ ; she wants to play ball and she wants to do it for as long as she can. Having the boys treat her like a little sister that needs protecting? Doesn’t fall into that.)

“That girl, that _woman_ right there? She’s a good one, one of the best. She deserves _your_ best. You give it to her or you answer to me.”

The kid’s chin raises, defiance shining his eyes. “I thought you weren’t going to threaten me.”

Mike nearly busts out laughing — the fuckers get younger every year. A smirk quirks at the edges of his lips. “If you thought that was a threat, you have a whole other thing coming.” His chin jerks over the kids shoulder, a sign to get going.

The catcher watches with stormy eyes as Ginny and the basketballer (he’d rather shove bamboo splinters up his fingernails than learn the fucker’s name) head off to their date; a rising feeling of apprehension and discomfort growing in his stomach.

“Hey Mike?” Blip drawls casually.

“Yea, Blip?”

“Can I make an observation?”

“No.” He glowers.

“Great.” He replies cheerfully. “Friends don’t look at each other the way you’re lookin’ at G right now.”

Mike’s head snaps to Blip’s retreating form and just like that, all of a sudden, everything clicks into place.

He’s in love with Ginny Baker.

“ _Fuck_.”

* * *

The fact of the matter is — she’s got a career ahead of her. And not just any kind of career, but one that’s gonna forge paths, blaze trails and scorch the earth of the world that is major league baseball. She’s going to pave the way for the next 20-something year old to make it on up to the majors and the fact of the matter is — Mike Lawson has no business being apart of that narrative, at least in any capacity except being known as her mentor.

He had told himself that he was protecting her. She’s already been saddled with his ass as it is, being known as aging Lawson’s pitcher is hard enough as it is (he’s aware of the trouble she’s going through with Duarte, trying to get used to him, used to pitching for someone who can’t read her like the back of a DVD case) — he’s aware, painfully so, that moving them past what they are is quite literally, akin to opening the seventh seal and starting the apocalypse.

It works, for the most part.

He’s convinced that she hasn’t clued onto his feelings and Blip has kept his mouth shut — right up until she shows up on his doorstep after her date, hair still done up and fancy shoes on and pretty dress sculpting

“Ginn - Baker?” Mike catches himself at the last second, frowning at the silhouette she cuts in the moonlight filtering onto his doorstep. “What are you doin’ here?”

“Andre was perfect.” She says slowly. “The whole night.”

Mike swallows, nodding softly. “That’s good.”

“And I should want that right?” Ginny question, peering at him as her head quirks to the side.

“Yeah.” He breathes, a heavy look coming over his face. And that’s what’s at the core, isn’t it? He just wants her to be happy — he’s seen the shit storm she goes through on a good day and she deserves happiness. He’ll fight tooth and nail to give that too her. “You should.”

Something must flash across his face, because she looks at him suddenly, frowning. “Why don’t you let me make my own choices?”

“I do —”

“No, you don’t.” Ginny shook her head, a soft, slightly hysterical laugh bubbling up her throat. “You assume I know what I want, that I want the guy who’s the perfect gentlemen. You assume that my career comes first. And yeah, it does. I love what I’m doing, I love playing and I want to do it for a long time, but —” She cuts herself off, tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip.

She snorts, glancing away from Mike, who stands speechless, watching her. “My therapist is quite fond of telling me that while my life starts with baseball, it shouldn’t end with it either.”

Her lips press together as she attempts to gather her thoughts. “I want this.” She glances back at Mike, one hand gesturing to the space between. “I want _you_. I wanna see where this goes, where we go. I don’t wanna fall asleep on the phone with you, but actually be there. I wanna wake up next to your dumb mug every morning because your bones are too brittle to make the trip back to your place.”

And shit, he thinks — the two of them are quite the pair, aren’t they? Can’t manage to have a normal conversation about feelings, can’t manage to sit the other down and do this _properly_.

“Sap, much rookie?” Mike quips, voice choking up and smile quirking at the edge of his mouth; just because he has to be an asshole, because he has to break the tension that wraps around them like a blanket.

She laughs wetly, the grin on her lips displaying the happiness and he knows it’s real — her dimples are right there and they’re all for him. “Just shut up and kiss me, Lawson.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **insomniabug:** I need PRANK WARS in the clubhouse. maybe it's ginny/tommy vs mike/blip. or just ginny vs mike and the rest of the guys are taking bets to see who is gonna lose their shit first.

In reality, it wasn’t even supposed to be a thing. Mike had made a casual comment about his prank days when he was in the Double A, and Ginny, never one to take a challenge lying down — declared war.

How he got roped into this whole thing, Tommy has no idea. He thinks it was somewhere around the point Baker stopped being an inconvenience and an actual friend slash little sister, but he’s not gonna say that. He and Baker have a healthy friendship that includes a lot of jokes at the other’s expense. Talking about feelings doesn’t fall into that.

Her hand slams down on the bartop. “This is _war_ , Miller, get your head in the game.”

(He wants to make a snarky quip that he has no real desire to be apart of Lawson and Baker’s weird ass foreplay disguised as banter disguised as mentoring, but that feels just a little bit too much like having a bleeding arm and jumping into a shark tank.)

“Alright.” Tommy allows, eyeing Ginny with something akin to wariness as he takes a sip of his beer. “What do we do?”

* * *

They fill Lawson’s locker with condoms. (He retaliates by plastering Tommy’s high school yearbook photo all over the locker room. Baker has to haul his ass from the clubhouse, lest he answer the move with his fists. “We’ll get him back.” Ginny says firmly, hands on hips, eyes narrowed as she glares at Lawson across the diamond, laughing and joking. Tommy’s never seen her look so goddamn fearless.)

* * *

Blip gets pulled in by Lawson two weeks into their prank war.

“You’re the secret weapon, Sanders.” Lawson mutters, eyeing the boy Ginny’s talking too a little ways down the bar. “We can win this with you.”

* * *

Tommy huffs a breath, leaning back in the booth of the club. “Why don’t we just steal his clothes?”

“Because that’s predictable.” Ginny scoffed, throwing back a shot of tequila a moment later. “Childish, even.”

(He doesn’t comment on the choice of drink, even though Baker usually always sticks to beer or bourbon, if she’s feeling particularly down. He thinks the heavy spirit has something to do with blonde agent of hers that Lawson’s chatting up, but again — shark tank, bleeding arm.)

Tommy raises an eyebrow at her choice of words. They’re involved in a prank war with their team captain and center fielder. All four of them passed childish a long way back.

“The best pranks are crafty.” She muses, dark eyes catching on the sight of Amelia and Mike with their heads bent together. “If we’re gonna do this — we’re gonna do it **right** , Miller.”

“Your brother did a number on you didn’t he?”

“You have no idea.” Ginny mutters darkly, with the haunted eyes that only a sibling could ever possess. Tommy’s eternally grateful his parents cut themselves off after one kid.

* * *

Baker distracts Lawson one afternoon, post-game while Tommy switches out his shampoo with blue hair dye.

(He never figures out what they talk about, but the lightness in Lawson’s step is a pretty big sign that Tommy, quite possibly, doesn’t want to know.)

When he emerges from his shower twenty minutes later, hair coloured a weird blend of blue and brown, Tommy has a near heart attack trying to stop himself from laugh. “You better fucking hide, Baker! Your ass is grass!”

* * *

Blip covers Ginny’s section of the clubhouse with Bieber posters when her new crush shows up for a game. (No one ever mentions how Tommy helped with that one.)

* * *

Ginny declares a new form of war after that — reaching a level that Tommy was fairly fucking sure **never** existed. She breaks into the vending machine, putting of Blip’s smaller peices of gear in there — including his cell phone.

“She pulled this shit in Texas man!” Blip yells frantically, pushing a five dollar bill into the machine, attempting to win back his cellphone.

Mike narrows his eyes at Baker, where she stands stretching out her legs. “We’ll get them back.”

* * *

Tommy _almost_ murders Lawson when he comes out from the game one day, finding his precious ‘68 Camaro covered in post it notes. The only thing that stops him is the fond look on Baker’s face.

(Like he said — weird ass foreplay was what this whole war was.)

* * *

Weeks pass without any pranks and the clubhouse returns to normal. The guys stop expecting air horns behind doors and hair dye in their shampoo bottles.

(Tommy doesn’t comment that it’s most likely because Baker started dating that basketball player and Lawson’s mood has taken a dive for the worst.)

But like all things, the truce never holds. From where he’s watching Baker and Lawson interact near his locker, Tommy wonders if the truce is shot to hell because of Lawson’s comments about the basketballer boyfriend a week ago. If his crush had said that shit, he’d loose it too.

Ginny smiles, handing over the pack of Oreos. “For you. An apology, I guess, that we’ve been doing this.”

Lawson hesitantly takes the pack, while Baker looks on, still innocent and smiling — her face wide open.

(Hell of a poker face, that one, Tommy muses.)

Their captain tears it open, biting into an Oreo and Tommy swears — the world moves in slow motion, Lawson’s face scrunching up as he realizes that the Oreos are not filled with icing cream, but actually mint toothpaste.

“Declare supremacy, Lawson.” She growls.

He glares around a mouth of minty toothpaste and chocolate biscuit. “Never.”

It was gonna be a long season.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **insomniabug:** Evelyn and Blip decide to renew their wedding vows and ask Ginny/Mike to be part of the ceremony.

“So favor.” Evelyn winced, setting aside her phone. “I need you to be my maid of honor.”

Ginny frowns, glancing up from the tattered paperback in her hands. “Forgive if I’m wrong but I was under the impression you were _already_ married.”

Evelyn levelled the other woman with a look. “I am, ya smartass, but we’re doing a vow renewal service in a month and I need you.”

“Is there anyway I can get out of this?” She pursed her lips.

Evelyn grinned. “Nope.”

“Fine.”

“So, the basics are, Lawson’s gonna be Blip’s best man and you can both give toasts but you don’t have too…”

Ginny didn’t even hear the rest of what Evelyn was saying, having tuned out right around Lawson and best man. It wasn’t that the two of them weren’t friends anymore or anything, it was just, well — things were different since he’d retired and now… now that they weren’t working together there was nothing really stopping them from being, well, more.

They could give into the tension that had been between them since day one, except, well — she technically had a boyfriend. It had made things awkward between them, complicated beyond belief. They hadn’t really spoken in months and now they were going to be forced into this vow renewal with him?

Ginny offered Evelyn a weak smile, already dreading the whole thing.

* * *

Two months pass and Ginny nearly forgets about the whole thing, absorbed in mentoring the new female call-up to the Padres and having a boyfriend and trade talks that when Evelyn drags her to dress fittings she doesn’t even realize it till halfway through.

Tugging on the strapless dress with a sweetheart neckline, cut just so to show off the small tattoo she has her upper chest (three birds in flight) and coloured a pale fuchsia, Ginny inhales deeply.

“Lookin’ good, rookie.” A voice grumbles from behind her.

“Mike.” She spins, heart beating faster at the sight of him. She hasn’t even seen him in two months (retirement does that) and — and yet it feels like no time as passed at all. “Hi.”

They don’t get a chance to even talk before he’s pulled away by the stylist to better fit his jacket, but the encounter leaves her hands shaking.

* * *

(She breaks up with her boyfriend a week before the vow renewal ceremony and tells herself it’s because they’ve run out of things to talk about, not because she’s still in love with the man she drunkenly kissed the night they made the playoffs.)

* * *

The day eventually arrives and Ginny dons the dress again. She holds Evelyn’s flowers, cries as her sons hands over the new rings Blip got for the ceremony, and bites her lip as her eyes connect with Mike.

(They could be us, he’s saying with his eyes.)

“Anyone who knows me, knows that really, my proficiency with words tends to rely on it being the eleventh hour, the do or die moment.” He inhaled deeply. “But here and now… there’s no eleventh hour. No do or die… just here and now. So here’s what I got.” Mike nodded. “It’s very easy to be cynical about love. Lord knows I am.” A grumble of laughter went through the gathered family, friends and handful of ballplayers.

“If you’re lucky, you find that instant connection with someone once. Evelyn and Blip, well, they were that lucky.” Mike’s eyes dart to Ginny’s and she inhales sharply at the emotion shining there. 

(She knows that exact connection he’s talking about, felt it every night she took the mound, saw one of his calls, shook him off even. It still takes her breath away and it’s been however many fucking years since the two of them were on a diamond together.)

“I’ve been lucky too, to know these two idiots, to crash on their couch, to witness the fine cocktail skills of Evelyn and the baking abilities of Blip. Oh wait, wasn’t supposed to mention that part.” The crowd laughs and Ginny reaches her index finger up to wipe away a lone tear.

“The point I guess is that — you two got lucky. And it’s been a blessing to witness that each and every day. To Blip and Evelyn!”

“To Blip and Evelyn,” Ginny mutters, holding her glass of wine up, eyes still locked on Mike’s.

(Something is different between them now and she knows he can feel it too.)

* * *

“Dance with me.” Mike holds a hand out and Ginny’s eyes dart from his hand to his face and back again.

“Come on, Gin, it’s just family here.”

(Even years later he still gets how hesitant she always is around crowds and people with cameras, even though she’s firmly known as a ballplayer. He’s always gotten her, even the rest of the world didn’t.)

“One dance.” She grumbles, her hand settling into his as they make their way onto the dancefloor.

And it’s less of a dance, really, more of a gentle sway and Ginny has no hesitance about leaning her head on his chest, sighing as the smell of his aftershave washes over her.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Mike rumbles, fingertips tapping softly against the small of her back.

“Don’t have one.” She sighed.

Mike merely hums. “Interesting.”

Ginny leans back slightly, eyes catching on the planes of his face. “God, you’re about as subtle as rock, old man.” She huffs before reaching up and gently pressing her lips to his own. She pulls back a moment later, smiling up at him, thinking that this moment, right here? It’s very well the first day of the rest of her life.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **ourstartingpoints:** ginny and mike going to play golf and they are flirting and they are cute and one thing led to another and they share their first kiss there. thank you!

Just because Mike retires, doesn’t mean they stop being friends. It’s a little odd, mostly because once his last season ends, he stops being Lawson and starts being Mike, and also because those phone calls that happened once or twice, every now then — suddenly uptick in frequency.

(As if they were trying to compensate for not seeing each other everyday over sixty feet and six inches of space; like some weird form of separation anxiety.)

As Ginny’s on the phone with him that night, she can’t help but realize that it’s been a while since she last saw him. (He had come to one of the games, the hometown hero returning to the place where it all started. Ginny made sure they got a win that day, if not because Mike deserved it.)

“What are you doin’ tomorrow?” Ginny questions, pressing her iPhone to her ear just a little bit closer.

She hears him snort. “I have a very full day, actually.”

“Really?” Her shoulders slump from where she’s lying on her bed.

“Yeah, planning to wake up at midday and everything.” Mike drawled. “Maybe even call my agent and yell at him about the sale of the old house.”

(She still can’t believe he sold that glass thing — logically she knows why he did, not needing that much space, but. _The pool_.)

Ginny’s lips purse. “So you’re not doing anything?”

“No, Baker,” Mike huffs, “I’m not doing anything. Why?”

“You wanna play golf?”

* * *

“You know the last time we were here…” Mike trailed off, hands on hips as he stared out over the green.

“My naked body had just been offered up on a silver platter to the interweb at large?” Ginny quipped, voice far too innocent and causal for the topic at hand.

He snorted.  “Cute.”

“Awh, shucks. Thanks for noticing old man!” She drawled, grinning as she bent down to drop the bucket of gold balls she’d retrieved moments before. “I was beginning to worry you were blind to my good looks.”

“Well, you are only the second prettiest teammate I’ve had.”

“Yes, and I know, within my heart of hearts, I will never be able to take that number one spot from Tommy.” Ginny sighed forlornly, grinning as she stands up, reaching for her golf club. (She knows what she’s going, on some other level. Flirting with him — it’s another thing that’s become a product of not being around each other near 24/7. Like she said, weird separation anxiety. But how that translates to flirting and near breathless sounds on the phone, Ginny doesn’t know. She’s not willing to analyze all that much either.)

He turns his head, hitting her with a look that clearly suggested she wasn’t at all funny. Ginny disagreed — she was _hilarious_ , thank you very much.

“So when do you start the broadcasting gig?” Ginny questioned, setting a golf ball on the tee and lining up her shot.

“This Friday.” Mike shrugged and glanced out over the green. (They play the Cubs that day in Chicago.)

Her lips pursed and she swung at the ball, watching it sail through the air. “Sure you’re gonna be okay?”

“And what does that mean?” Mike questioned, only slightly defensive as he lined up his own shot. (He’d long ago stopped pretending he didn’t know how to play golf, or that he even played at all.)

“I’m just sayin’ —” Ginny shrugged, snorting softly, “Last time you were on national TV talkin; about sports you dazzled by the second prettiest teammate you’ve ever had.”

( _She’s a hell of a lot stronger than I am, that’s for sure._ She remembers watching that footage on her phone on the way back from the stadium; hating herself for giving that home run up and then with a handful of sentences from him, she suddenly didn’t feel like that much of a fraud any longer. Years after the fact and it still sort of shocks her how a handful of sentences from him can make her feel better.)

He shrugged. “Nervous rookie, didn’t wanna make her feel bad at her first All-Star game.”

“You’re a cheeseball.” Ginny scoffed.

Mike turned, winking. “You love it.”

(She remembers what Trevor said to her once — even the most famous woman in the world needs a golf partner. And she feels it, feels as if they’re coming up on a moment, one that they won’t just file away in a box; like they did that night they made it to the World Series and he stared at her lips for what felt like hours, or at that time she nearly kissed him outside her hotel room when she was drunk and he was escorting her back; or even that time when she was in hospital, her shoulder feeling as if it was being ripped in half and set on fire, and the only that made her feel grounded was Mike’s hand in her own. It feels like one of those — only it won’t be put away this time. Ginny doesn’t know what to do with that reality.)

“Jesus you can’t swing.” She drawled, watching as Mike hit the ball, but given how tight his hips were (see: old man Lawson), the ball barely sailed through.

“Like you can do any better.”

“I’ve been playing longer, so uh, yeah, I _can_.” (When has she ever turned a challenge down, anyway?)

Ginny steps over the slight divide and makes a play for his golf club, but something happens — be it fate or the universe or her own two left feet or even just an unconscious movement — she ends up falling into him and Mike is just. Right there. His chest presses against her own, and she can feel one of his hands softly against the small of her back; both supporting her and keeping her close. She can feel his warm breath ghost over the curve of her cheek.

Her chin tilts up slightly and she can feel it, near taste it — the energy that’s always crackling between them somehow reaches a crescendo, and then blissful silence. It’s only the two of them in the world. They’ve created a bubble and the sounds of the other golfers fade from her ears, the sight of them fade from the corners of her eyes.

He is her beginning, her middle and her end.

And before she can blink or he can over think it, he closes the inch of space between them, lips pressing against her own.

(It feels like coming home. Like when she slides into base after stealing home, like when she takes the mound, like when she pitches six batsman out, no hits and there’s that niggling feeling she might have a no hitter on the way; like when she felt the stirrings of want and desire that night they got drunk on the diamond. It feels like everything and nothing and all Ginny can think is — why the fuck didn’t they do this sooner?) 

Her lips slide against his and one hand comes up, curving along his jaw and the stubble he has now, (having shaved after a lost bet with Miller during last month’s Padres get together) before Ginny smiles, exhaling as she pulls back.

“We **really** should have done that sooner.” She smiled, nose scrunching up as she tipped her head back to look at Mike.

Mike snorted, hand curling around her hip. “You’re the one that wanted to play _golf_ , rookie.”

(Even the most famous woman on the planet needs a golf partner, Trevor had told her once. Ginny’s glad she found hers.)


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** mike  & ginny's son comes out to them.

“I think I like dudes.” Isaac blurts out, words hurried and panicked.

To Ginny’s credit, she doesn’t even swerve the car when Isaac’s words actually register in her brain, which, thank fuck, in all honesty. Wouldn’t have exactly boded well on that front but.

“Uh.” She chokes out, glancing hesitantly at Mike, who barely looks fazed, only worried that Ginny might crash by the sheer fact their son decided now, of all times, was appropriate to come out. Her gaze shifts back to the road and she exhaled roughly. “Well. For the next time can we _not_ tell Mom and Dad while they’re in the car, thanks?”

Isaac chewed on his bottom lip. “You’re cool with it?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Mike frowned.

“Just…” He trails off, unwilling to give voice to the words lurking in his brain.

And look, Ginny gets it. It’s hard, voicing something that’s so fucking huge and has the potential to completely alter lives and change family dynamics. But she’s always thought she was good at the acceptance thing. (Not to mention it’d be hypocritical of her, to be the first woman in professional baseball and not be at least somewhat accepting of change.)

“Kiddo,” Mike sighed as the car came to a red light. He undid his seatbelt, shifting in his seat to face Isaac. “No matter what person you bring home, you’re always gonna be our son, okay? Always. So long as I still reserve the right to threaten the dudes you bring home, of course.”

The smallest of smiles quirked at the edges of Isaac’s lips. “Mom?”

“You have been so very much loved and wanted, Isaac,” Ginny sighed, “Even when it was 3AM and you were stomping on my bladder as a baby, and even when you decided that it was time to enter this world during your Dad’s final All-Star game. Preference ain’t gonna change that.”

She glanced at her son through the rear-view mirror, offering him a smile.

“Now tell your father to put his seat-belt back on because we still need to pick up your sister _and_ get to the store before it closes.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** Tommy comes out to Mike and Ginny, and is baffled when they start arguing over who will help him get a boyfriend first.
> 
> a/n: this takes place two years into the future.

Tommy likes to think he’s a cool guy. Likes to think he can roll with the punches and handle what life throws at him. (There was a moment or two when Baker first arrived, that, he’ll admit — he didn’t handle well. His sister tells him that that’s because of lingering resentment about his injury and frustration at being put on the DL list, not because of a woman joining the team. One psych class at college and suddenly Vanessa Miller thinks she’s goddamn Freud.)

Tommy thinks he can deal with the shitstorm of insanity that is coming out as gay while being an active professional baseball player in the major league. What he can’t handle? Mike and Ginny arguing over who can help him find a boyfriend.

“Do you even _know_ any gay people, old man?” Is the first thing Tommy hears when he shows up to the gym that morning. Which, not what he was expecting. Like, give Tommy a piece of paper to write down a list of what he’d expect to hear first thing at this hour, coming from Baker’s mouth? That sentence wouldn’t have even made the top ten.

(When workout sessions between Baker, Lawson and him became a fulltime thing, he’s got not clue. He’s not making noise about it though, since he’s watched Baker’s pitch uptick in speed, Lawson lose weight and himself gain muscle structure.)

Mike grumbles. “I know many gay people, rookie, I resent that statement.”

“Oh, right — my mistake.” She scoffs and Tommy watches with delayed amusement as she goes toe to toe with their captain. “Do you know any people who are within the age range of Tommy?”

A frown blooms on his face. (He’ll admit, a part of him was always worried when he came out to the team at large. But the silent support from Mike and grin from Ginny did a long way to easing himself and the team. Head and heart, those too.) — why, though, they’re arguing about whom he’s dating, or going to date, he has no idea.

“Plenty.” He squawks, affronted.

“Right.” Ginny drawls, rolling her eyes with all the bratty sass of a 25 year old woman.

“Rookie —”

“This situation requires someone who actually knows what it’s like to date in the modern world, old man. When was the last time you went on a date? 1999?” She scoffed, eyes narrowing into a glare.

“I think I’d know how to find a date for Tommy, whom I might add, I’ve known longer.” He glares.

Ginny waves his words away with a lazy flick of her wrist. “Pitchers — we understand each other better than any other person could.”

“God, you’re so —” Mike growls.

“Here’s a radical thought.” Tommy pipes up, dropping his gym bag on the floor. “Why don’t we let Tommy decide who he wants to date? Better yet — focus on your **own** damn love lives instead of mine.”

Ginny purses her lips and glances at Mike out of the corner of her eye. Tommy frowns again, watching as Ginny merely turns on her heel and throws herself into warm-up stretches.

(And _that_ , ladies and gentlemen, is how Tommy learns that Ginny Baker and Mike Lawson made out three weeks ago at the party post the game that secured them a wild card win. It’s also how he learns that his teammates are freakin’ insane and using his own love life as a weird vehicle to talk about them, but. He ignores that part.

He’s too busy collecting the pool money to worry about it.)


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** Ginny, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, meets Mike, the catcher with crumbly knees for the first time. (His old doctor had to retire)

Here’s what you’ve got to understand — Ginny wasn’t even supposed to be his ortho surgeon. She wasn’t even supposed to be at his hospital, all the way in San Diego. She had plans — plans that included a fiancee and a nice house in St. Louis with her Cardinals catcher.

But as her mother always said, fate works in mysterious ways. Which Ginny thinks is total _bullshit_. She’s a doctor, a scientist at heart — facts and cold, hard, reality is what she deals in. Not something as fickle as fate.

Mike Lawson’s doctor retiring three weeks before his scheduled surgery and offering the chance for a younger, brighter surgeon to come in and try something new — not fate. _Circumstance_. **Happenstance**.

(She carefully ignores the fact that in three weeks she’s set to operate on her childhood hero, a hero whose poster was on her fucking wall and if that, that doesn’t at least have an element of fate, than in another life, perhaps she did something wrong.)

“Look what we got here. Ginny Baker, in the flesh.” Mike Lawson drawls, seated in his hospital bed. “I’ve had to hear a lot about you lately. Which isn’t easy for me. They tell me I’m a narcissist.”

Ginny snorts, picking up his chart at the end of his bed. She doubts that he’s a narcissist — frustrated, hurt, in pain, resentful, sure. But not narcissistic.

He looks on curiously at her. “Would it be inappropriate to say you’re the second prettiest doctor I’ve ever had?”

“ _Yes_ — wait.” She glanced up from his chart, brows furrowed. “Second?” 

He shrugs, casual as can be, as if he isn’t in mass amounts of pain and has trouble walking the short distance to the coffee cart at the end of the hallway. “Dr. Cruz had the nicest eyes.”

That — she can agree with. “No arguments there.”

She opens her mouth to run though pre-op protocols, ask him about his pain tolerance and allergies, because while she might be going in somewhat blind; she’s not going in that blind, when Mike smoothly cuts across her.

“You’ve done this before, right?” His teeth tug nervously at the edge of his lip.

Ginny inhales deeply. She clicks her pen off and stuffs her hands into the pockets of her med-jacket. “Once.”

“Did it work?” And — she can thinks she can hear the slight tremor in his voice, the element of worry and dare she say it — hope.

(Yes. But that surgery was highly experimental and on a goddamn cadaver, not an actual living person. And not even a person, really — a fucking hometown hero, a living legend. And Mike Lawson wasn’t just that to all of San Diego, either, but Ginny herself. She was acutely aware of the fact that if she screwed up, she wasn’t just fucking with Mike Lawson and all that entitled — she was fucking with her own childhood perceptions.)

She gazed steadily back at him. “I’m here aren’t I?”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Her shoulders deflate slightly. “Every patient is different.” (Ginny’s spent more time telling people that than she’s been in the OR.)

“So you’re saying it might not work.” His jaw clenches and Ginny’s heart fractures.

“I’m saying I need to get in there,” Her chin jerked at his knees, “And see what I’m working with. I’ll be sure though to wake you up on the table and tell you what’s happening though.”

He laughs, head shaking softly. “Ginny Baker.”

“Mike Lawson.” She parrots back.

“I gave my life to this game.” And that hope and desperation is back. The fracture in Ginny’s heart blows into a full grown crack.

“I know.” Ginny nodded sharply.

He gazes curiously at her, frowning. (He’s looking at her as if she’s a puzzle — as if he can’t quite wait to unravel her and figure out her secrets. She can’t fall down that rabbit hole though. There’s a life waiting for her once she’s seen him through his surgery.)

She shrugs slightly, a smirk blooming on the edges of her lips. “May or may not have your rookie card.”

A sharp bark of laughter falls from his lips. “Well, Christ, now I feel old.”

Ginny sighed and leaned forward onto the little table at the end of his bed. “Look — I’m not gonna sugar coat this for you. Frankly because I believe sugar coating medicine is a recipe for **disaster** and also because I think you’ve had a lotta doctors tell you everything from _you’ll be fine_ to l _et’s get you a wheelchair_.”

Mike snorts. (She’s not wrong.)

“Your knees are shot.” She stated bluntly and his face falls. “Crumbling. The cartilage is ruined and the ligaments are mottled.” Ginny smirks and a wary look overcomes his face. “But I’m the kind of doctor who has a perfect blend of delusion and reality who thinks she can succeed where others have failed.”

He’s quiet for a moment, gazing steadily at her; while Ginny feels like he can see all her secrets without her even trying. (She’s never felt that exposed, not even with her own damn fiancee.) “You’re quite something aren’t you, Ginny Baker?”

“Oh, you have _no idea_ old man.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** Bawson, at the ultrasound -- It's twins!

“Oh, hold on.”

Mike likes to think he’s a calm person, but when the doctor giving Ginny her first ultrasound goes _hold on_ , he starts to panic only slightly. The panic isn’t at all helped by how Ginny’s grip on his hand tightens with each passing second.

(They’re finally at a place, together where they’re both ready for kids, want them together — and nothing or no one is going to take that from them.)

The doctor fiddles with the dials on the ultrasound monitor, frowning softly before they hear it.

“Is that —” Ginny starts, frowning as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing.

The doctor nods. “Two heartbeats.”

Tears flood Mike’s eyes as the sound of two strong, fluttering heartbeats echo in his ears.

“Well,” The doctor smiles over at the couple. “That explains why you had such strong hCG levels, Ms. Baker. You’re having twins.”

**Twins.**

Two little girls, or two little boys — or a boy and a girl. Each with Ginny’s wild hair and his calm eyes. The slope of her nose and the size of his ears. Two perfect examples of their love, the perfect blend of the two of them.

“Twins, old man.” Ginny grins a watery smile up at him, her bottom lip quivering.

“Twins, rookie.” He pressed a kiss to the crown of her forehead. “Twins.”


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **mikeginsanity:** "You make me wanna be a better man."

It’s stupid, how a 23 year old rookie pitcher with a nasty screwball and mean-ass knuckleball can walk right into his life and shake it up six ways from Sunday. It’s possibly pathetic, how one glance at that little soft frown of hers when some story about him blows wide-open in the tabloids, how one glance at it and all of a sudden he feels as if he’s kicked her puppy or something.

Scratch that. It’s not possibly pathetic; it fucking _is_.

It all comes to a head right around the lead up to the new season. Spring training is particularly brutal this time around, he notes. But the day he and Ginny stop dancing around the, the air is crisp and the future is bright and Mike swears he can taste the hope every time he inhales.

“This going to blow up in our faces.” Ginny sighs, her cheek pressed against Mike’s chest as they cuddle on the couch.

“Probably.” Mike snorts, his hands idly playing the wild curls of Ginny’s that spill out over him. “Least we’re gonna be happy for awhile though.”

* * *

His knees give out three months before the season ends. It’s not a pretty sight, sitting in that hospital bed while doctors and specialists from all over the globe converge on this one room; not pretty how they keep glancing at him from the corner of their eyes, talk in hushed whispers. Not at all pretty how Mike can just fucking tell — the news isn’t good and this whole shit storm is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

The only thing that keeps him sane is how Ginny holds his hand, near crushing the bones.

“Careful, rookie,” Mike drawls, wincing slightly “Those ones still _work_.”

“Don’t joke right now.” She snaps, eyes watery and voice thick. It must have damn near scared her when he tried to rise from home plate to throw that ball to second; only for a near sickening crack to echo around the stadium, followed by his shout of pain.

“Hey.” He tugs slightly on her hand, directing her gaze to his. “It’s me. I’m gonna be fine.”

* * *

(Mike Lawson is decidedly not fine.)

* * *

They break up on a cold winter’s day. The contrast between when they got together and when they break up isn’t lost on Mike.

“I can’t — I can’t do this Mike.” Tears flood her eyes. “I can’t be the one thing holding you together, I can’t be your emotional crutch right now.”

“So that’s it.” He retorts, voice blunt. “You’re just gonna leave then?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Ginny cries, her hands waving about. “Sit around and be your fluffer, make you feel good, primp your ego because you’re feelin’ down? I don’t exist to make you feel better, Lawson.”

(It’s the first time she’s called him by his last name since they got together. It’s also the first time Mike sees what he’s done to her — what needing her for everything has done. She looks not only exhausted from a lack of sleep, but emotionally exhausted. Like she’s giving him everything and he’s giving her nothing in return.)

Her head shakes and he doesn’t see it, but a long tear rolls down the curve of her cheek. “I can’t do this.”

(He notices how she never says sorry — he doesn’t know what to make of that.)

* * *

For the first four weeks, he does nothing. Sits on couch, gets too invested in the life and times of the cast of Gilmore Girls while reruns play during the day. He takes his meds on time, if only because Ginny burned it into his damn brain to do so.

Blip comes around with beer, drinks one and leaves the rest in the fridge. Like he’s waiting for that day when Mike isn’t on meds and he’s gonna drink himself stupid to cope with the pain of loosing Ginny. Al visits, same with Oscar, checking in on his state. He smiles, nods, says he’s feeling better with each passing day, even though his heart feels as if it’s split in two and there’s no way to repair it.

Things change when Evelyn stops by and having called a mutiny. (It’s apparent she knows about the break-up and Mike isn’t sure what to do with that. She had a front row seat to Rachel’s destroying of himself, and loosing Ginny is perhaps, worse than that in it’s own unique way.)

“This is fucking pathetic, Lawson.” Evelyn states, hands on her hips as she takes in the sight that Mike Lawson paints.

From his seat on the couch, Mike snorts a bitter laugh. “Shit on the injured guy, thanks.”

“This is why she left you, you know that right?”

Mike flinches and his eyes flash with anger and barely masked pain. “Excuse me?”

“This, right here.” Evelyn’s hand waved at Mike, but he has a feeling she’s playing at something much more. “This is why she left. How the hell was she supposed to stay and love you, when she couldn’t even recognize you?”

The look on Evelyn’s face says it all. Mike glances away. He doesn’t say anything, not even when Evelyn sighs softly and lets herself out of his house.

* * *

(The next morning, he doesn’t skip his PT appointment.)

* * *

(He learns she’s tentatively dating Duarte four weeks into his new intensive PT therapy. Mike would like to say the set-back was because of natural healing progression and _not_ because he pushed himself to hard one week, but.)

* * *

The first time Mike sees her since she left his sorry ass is when he shows up for a game. He hadn’t wanted to go anywhere near Petco, lest he run into her or Blip or Evelyn or God-fucking-Forbid, _Duarte_ , but seeing Carl, the team PT guy is a condition of his reinstatement next season, so here he is.

In the bowels of Petco, paranoid and checking over his shoulder so that he doesn’t run into his ex-girlfriend when he does just that — quite literally, run into his ex-girlfriend.

Ginny curses, wildly glances up before freezing when she notices it’s him.

“Hi.” He offers awkwardly.

She doesn’t say anything. Merely gazes steadily at him. He’s changed, he knows. Lost some weight, shaved his beard. He looks lighter and not just in the physical sense. (He thinks the limp helped somewhat towards not feeling like a failure and a lost cause, but — admitting that means admitting his PT sessions are helping and he likes the cynical aura he’s got going on these days.)

“Hi.” Ginny says after a moment.

“How -”

“Better.” She states smoothly and God — she sounds like that robot she becomes sometimes, when she shuts herself down to deal with the emotional fallout of a shitty situation. (He loathes the fact he put her into this.)

“That’s… that’s good. I’m glad.” Mike nods, rocking softly onto the balls of his feet.

“Are you -” Ginny hedges.

“Still on the meds.” Mike confirms.

Her shoulder loose just a slight amount of the tension that they were holding a moment earlier. “Right.”

“Baker!” Miller calls out and Ginny turns towards the sound.

“Yeah, I got it Gremlin!” She yells and Mike inhales sharply. — that, that was his nickname. When did Ginny start picking up his habits?

“Uh - I gotta,” Ginny waves a vague hand behind her, gesturing. She has a game to win and Mike — what does Mike have? The game is slipping between his fingertips, he doesn’t have a wife or a girlfriend to come home too, he barely even has any fucking friendships, too. What does Mike Lawson have? 

“No, yeah, wouldn’t wanna keep you.”

She nods and turns, heading off before she pauses, and turns around to face him again. “You gonna be watching?”

Mike nods sharply. “VIP booth.”

And for the first time since he can remember — Ginny smiles. “I’ll try to make it a good game then.”

He laughs. “All of your games are good ones, rookie.”

* * *

He realizes at the bottom of the sixth, when she’s getting that twinge in her elbow that she always does — what she did and what it did for him. Loosing her is the wake-up he needed and he hates it. Hates that he’s come to depend on this woman like he’s depended on no other.

He hates that it takes loosing Ginny-fucking-Baker for him to wake the fuck up.

(Mike makes the decision, then and there, watching her pitch an screwball to Duarte that Ginny Baker will not be the one that got away.)

* * *

Mike manages to catch up with Ginny before she faces the rabid press crowd post-game. His hand gently wraps around her bicep, tugging her softly to a stop. “Hey, uh — can we talk a minute?”

“Mike…” Ginny trails off, and that exhausted look is back. She’s not over loosing him either, he realizes. How did he miss all of this — he used to be so fucking good at reading her, at knowing her better than she knew herself… and here they are. He’s missing the calls and tells she’s throwing him and for the first time in his odd 17 or so years on the field he feels like a damn rookie all over again.

“You should have broken up with me.” He rushes to say and the flinch she levels at him breaks his heart. “I don’t hold that against you.” A shocked, half-baked laugh falls from his lips. Mike looks at her, looks at her like she’s the sun and the moon and he’s sorry that he missed that for all those months. “You — Jesus, you. You make me wanna be a better man. Better at the game, better at life, better **to** you, better _for_ you. I never expected a 23 year old rookie to make me want that. But I do.”

Something flashes through Ginny’s face and Mike near rejoices — he’s getting it back, getting that ability to read her back and it’s. It’s the surest sign that he might just make it back onto that diamond for one last season.

“I’m gonna be better. And I’m gonna win you back.” He nods, smiling before he turns and heads his own way out of Petco Park.

(He misses the small, secretive smile that blooms on Ginny’s face after the fact.)


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **mikeginsanity:** Ginny and Mike are hapless witnesses of a Blip and Evelyn fight and their kiss 'n' make up

“I can’t believe this is happening.” Ginny huffed, sliding down the wall.

Giving up on attempting to pick the lock and secure their freedom, Mike shrugged turning to face Ginny. “Could be worse.”

“How, how could this possibly be worse?” She hissed. “We’re locked in a goddamn _coat closet_ while our friends are fighting outside. This isn’t even my own home! I’m stuck here, witnessing and hearing —”

Almost on cue a loud shout from Evelyn, though muffled, echoed through the tiny space. The words couldn’t be made out but Ginny has the distinct feeling they aren’t pretty. Or destined for polite company.

Mike pursed his lips. “Could be stuck in here with Miller’s gremlin ass.”

She glanced up, staring at him for a moment before a surprised laugh bubbled up her throat. “Don’t make me laugh.” Ginny hissed out in between giggles. “They’re gonna _know_.”

With a huff of breath and wince, Mike lowered himself towards the floor, sitting next to Ginny and seemingly getting comfortable for the next hour or so they we’re gonna be there for. He stretched his legs out and Ginny couldn’t even find it within herself to hide her own wince when she heard his bones crack and pop.

‘ _Well it’s not my fault!_ ’ Blip yelled and Mike winced.

He coughed awkwardly. (Yeah, Ginny was feeling that one too.) “How’s — uh, pitching with Duarte?”

(A new and very recent development — he’d been moved to first base the last week or so and thus far, the dynamic on the field was okay. Duarte was quick on his feet and he called well. Mike could play first base with the best of them but he was a catcher at heart, — no matter what his knees said and no matter what his back spasms suggested. It was for that reason alone that things on the diamond, while fine, were not okay. They were fine to the point where no one had to worry, but not okay to the point where something was about to give sooner or later.)

“Fine.” She shrugged softly. Fox Sports had started billing her and Duarte as the Dream Duo; the golden age of pitcher and catcher. She didn’t mind it, per say — but Mike was her catcher. “He’s not you.”

‘ _Yeah, because the great Blip fucking Sanders can do no wrong!_ ’ Evelyn threw back.

She frowned, turning her gaze towards the locked door. “What do you think they’re fighting about?”

“Money. The twins. Usual couple things.” Lord knew his fights with Rachel tended towards baseball and time away from home but that was the difference between Blip and Evelyn and him and Rachel; Blip and Evelyn wanted to make it work and towards the end him and Rachel didn’t… or couldn’t even. (It’s been two years since his divorce and there are still parts he’s not quite willing to analyse.)

A short bitter laugh falls from Ginny’s mouth. “Wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Baker…” Mike trailed off. He wants to say that it’ll be okay — she’ll find someone, someone who isn’t a shitty excuse for a catcher who calls balls in the middle of a beanball war out of some perverse desire to protect her, (as if Ginny ever needed that), that she’ll find someone who isn’t dumb enough to think that his phone would backup photos to his iCloud account. (What a memorable conversation that was. He remembered when Ginny told him, — stoic and strong and damn near robotic as she told him. If Amelia noticed he cracked near double the jokes than he usually did that week trying to get her to smile, she didn’t comment.)

Ginny merely shook her head, shooting him a look. (She didn’t wanna talk about the clusterfuck that was Trevor. She didn’t want to talk about him on a good day, let alone locked in a closet with Mike.)

‘ _This is out of my hands!_ ’

‘ _Everything is always out of your hands!_ ’

“You got any food on you?” Mike questioned and Ginny near laughed.

“We just had dinner, old man and you’re still hungry?”

“Don’t judge my eating habits, Baker. Not when I see how much bacon and eggs you put away on a good day.”

She laughed softly, shaking her head. “Do I look like I got any food on me?”

“Anything in your backpack there?” His chin jerked at the black Nike bag she never seemed to be without. Rolling her eyes, Ginny reached for the bag and ruffled through the clothes, mobile phone charger wallet and spare jacket before she pulled out two slightly squished muesli bars.

“No chocolate?” Mike frowned.

Ginny glared. “Take it or leave it old man.”

He huffed and plucked one out of her hand before frowning slightly. Ginny paused, glancing up from her own muesli bar. It was oddly quiet.

“Have they…” She trailed of, glancing at Mike in question.

“I think they have.” A grin quirked at Mike’s lips. He made to stand up when the both of them heard it.

A soft thump. A moan. A pointed giggle.

“Oh fuck.” Ginny cursed.

“Yeah.” He sighed wearily. “I’d say there’s about to be _a lot_ of that. Might as well get comfortable.”

(When Blip finds them two hours later, Ginny passed out on Mike’s lap and Mike sleeping against the wall, he doesn’t say anything. He merely grabs a pillow, shoves it behind Lawson’s head and drapes a blanket over Ginny. They’d probably hate themselves in the morning for sleeping at that angle, but — Blip’s willing to bet it’s probably the best night sleep the two of them have had in a long time.)


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> entry as a part of this week's pitching prompts - what if mike was hooking up with ginny instead of amelia?

“The consequence is close to home…” Blip trailed off and Mike sends a prayer up – up to whatever fucker is there I nthe sky and controlling shit with his magic powers.

(“It can’t get out, Mike – it _can’t_.” She murmured to him, half asleep post orgasm number two.)

“Now I know it’s not Ginny, cause even you’re not that crazy…”

He turns away from the bartop, beer in hand and his eyes somehow connect with Blip’s. And just like that, within the span of one glance and five seconds, the veritable cat is out of the bag.

(Mike loathes how he never has a fucking poker face when it comes to Ginny Baker. Life was a hell of a lot easier when he could lie his way through relationships and faked intimacy. Now he finds himself caring and giving half-time eleventh hour speeches to his team at the drop of hat and a handful of words from her.)

“Oh my God.” Blip’s jaw drops. “You _are_ that crazy.” His hand scrubs over his mouth. “Jesus Christ, Mike.”

He scowls, leaning back against his bartop, taking a healthy swig of his drink. “Yeah, okay, you can cut with the holier than thou bullshit. I get it.”

“Do you?” He fires back. “Because you’re sleepin’ with the first female baseballer and also someone I consider family… so I don’t think you get much of anything.”

“It just –“ It was just supposed to be a one-time thing – in that bar in LA, how he’d found her outside after the fact,  when she was getting some air from the club and him, not quite ready to face the fact he was going back to an empty hotel room. _Again_. It was supposed to just be a one-time thing – he’d very much said that to her when she was pushing him back into her bed, her nimble fingertips working his belt buckle.

(When he showed up at her hotel room after the beanball war, something dark and ugly (jealously and worry and anger) in his chest, he told her that it was only because he needed some kind of stress relief.)

Blip crosses his arms. “You need to end this. Before it gets out – and it will get out – and you destroy her career before it’s even begun.”

A short bitter laugh falls from Mike’s lips and he takes a swig of his beer. “Can’t do that.”

“Mike –“ Blip growled.

“I can’t, Blip.” Mike glanced away from his best friend, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. “I can’t.”

Realization dawned on Blip’s face and he leant heavily against the pool table. “You love her.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged, not even bothering to deny it. Because somewhere between one-time thing and stress relief and the first time she spent the night – and also the first time Ginny bore witness to the way his body was working against him, - somewhere between all of that they become something more and something real. “I don’t know. Getting there.”

“Fuck.” Blip cursed.

“Understatement of the century.” Mike snorted, “You want that beer now?”

The center-fielder nodded wordlessly, and Mike rounded the bar, cracking open the second drink and wordlessly handing it over.

“What are you gonna do?” Blip questions, taking a heavy sip.

“No fuckin’ clue.”

Blip took another swig of his beer – seemingly needing it with each bombshell that was dropped on him. “That’s reassuring.”

“I tried giving her up, man. I tried staying away from her…” (And he’d tried, Christ, he had. Right after the All-Stars game he’d resolved himself to the fact they would stop. He’d stop texting her to come over, he’d stop showing up at her door, they’d make that transition from teammates who fucked to a trusted friendship. And yet, somehow, Mike had ended up calling her that night. If he closes his eyes, he can still remember the way her laugh sounded in his ears, can still remember how light he felt after a day of body blows and horrifying news. He knew then, more than ever, that he was fucking screwed when it came to Ginny Baker.)

“But I’m at that age where I – I don’t care about the politics of this world anymore. I just wanna… I just wanna have someone to talk to at night.”

(Mike doesn’t know it – but in that moment, Blip sees that familiar look of hope, the kind of look he hasn’t seen on Mike’s face since the news broke that Rachel had been having an affair for six months and was planning to leave him once the season ended. Ginny Baker gives Mike Lawson hope and it’s for that fact alone, Blip lets go of some of his animosity towards the situation. How can something so wrong do so much good for one man?)

Blip’s hand comes down, clapping against his shoulder. “Now’s the time to start praying isn’t it?”

Mike laughed, shaking his head. “I’ve been praying since the first time she spent the night.”

“You’ll survive this.” He said with conviction, nodding firmly.

“Yeah.” Mike snorted. “I know I will – but. What about her?”

Blip didn’t have an answer for that.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **insomniabug:** there's a team Halloween party (or maybe it's Evelyn/Blip's annual halloween bash because YOU KNOW they'd have a big party and go all out) and Ginny/Mike have been fighting (maybe it's the Amelia fallout or something else.) They both show up at the party, thinking the other wasn't going to be there, and find out they chose either the same costume or costumes that go together.

Ginny’s only been to one of the Sanders annual Halloween Blow Out Bashes, but the one she did go to lead to a missing pair of shoes, a bruise (or hickey) on her wrist and a recipe of buffalo chicken wings on her thigh.

There are gaps in her memory that still haven’t been filled and it’s near five years after that last party.

You could say that she’s not looking forward to the next one.

* * *

“Ginnifer Baker!” Evelyn huffed, her elbows leaning down on the table at the little cafe. “It’s _Halloween_.”

“Really?” Ginny drawled, tipping her head back to soak up the last of the October sunshine. Soon she’d blink and it’d be cold, at least by California’s standards. “I thought all these pumpkins were just Cinderella tryin’ out new rides.”

Mike snorts. 

Ginny flinches at the sound.

“Look at my face and tell me, am I in the mood for sass right now?”

Ginny opens her mouth to quip something but the glare Evelyn fires at her is enough to rethink her plan.

“Don’t you even think about quipping at me right now.”

“You have to come to the party.” She sighs.

Ginny scowled. “No.” 

“Because. Livan comes off the DL this week and I gotta help him out.”

(If she sees Mike flinch out of the corner of her eye, Ginny ignores it.)

“Ginny, come on. It’s one night. Take a break.”

“Do you even remember what happened at the last Halloween party of yours I went too?” Ginny fires back, and Evelyn looks suitable guilty.

“I lost my shoes, woke up with a hickey on my wrist and a recipe for chicken wings on my thigh. That’s not even the counting the shit I can’t remember!”

Evelyn’s teeth tug on her bottom lip. “So the punch might have been a little bit more potent that year…”

“Evelyn!”

“Ginny!” She growled back. “You are my best friend. There’s no way you’re not showing up to this for me. _Okay_?”

* * *

(Ginny gives in an hour later on the condition she chooses her own costume with no input from Evelyn.)

* * *

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Mike turns his head, snorting as he takes in Ginny’s own costume. “The irony is delicious.”

This is what happens, Ginny muses to herself, when two people, previously normal and professional have a drunken kiss. The result? Stony silence and awkward glances and a general feeling of off-kilterness. (Ginny doesn’t like it. At this point she just wants her friend back, that’s all.)

She tugs idly on the puffy white vest she’s wearing as apart of her costume, glancing away from Mike. She forewent the gloves because it’s California, not New York but still — she’s feeling distinctly warm, given the pants tucked into the boots look she’s got going on due to her chosen costume.

“You need to change.”

Her eyes glance down at the utilitarian dark brown jacket he wears over the off-white shade shirt, before shifting even further to the belt he wears, blaster hanging along his hip. Ginny can’t deny — he makes the costume look good, the character even better and she’s reminded of the time Will sat her down in the living room to watch the film. (Granted, the feelings in her chest are distinctly _different_ to that of what she felt at 13 years old, but that’s beside the point.)

“I got here first.” Mike pointed out.

Ginny narrowed her eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“There are rules, Baker.” He drawled. “Halloween costume rules that you might ignore but the rest of us live by.”

“Mike.” Ginny hissed, and she wrapped a hand around his arm, tugging him towards a darkened alcove. “Be serious here. People are gonna think we came together. Matching.” Her lips purse. “As a couple.”

He looks at her oddly, taking in the frustrated expression she wears before he shrugs slightly. “Would that be so bad?”

He disappears a moment later, out from under Ginny’s grip and she’s left there wondering why he chooses now of all times to bring up that stupid kiss. If she reaches for the punch that she knows is filled with a lot more alcohol than usual, she chooses not to comment on it.

* * *

She catches sight of some of the daughters of her teammates, wearing 43 jerseys and the sight sends a pang through her heart. What she’s doing, it hits her with an acute sort of direction, tugging at her heart strings.

What she’s doing it hard, yes, and she’s working against 100 years of baseball mythology and biology and that’s not including the sexism but — those little girls, wearing her jersey. It’s worth it for them.

* * *

She finds him on the deck as the party is in full swing an hour later. If she’s tipsy than usual, wobbling in the slightly heeled boots she’s wearing, Ginny doesn’t notice.

She hovers in the doorway, fingertips idly tugging at the thick braid that loops across the crown of her head. She spent an hour watching the movie that afternoon, trying to get the hairstyle as close as possible — so much so she contemplated just shaving her head when the thing wouldn’t work out just right. Ginny huffs a breath and her hands fall to her side.

“I don’t like fighting with you.” She says by way of greeting to Mike, lounging on one of the deck chairs outside.

“Really?” He snorted. “Thought you got some kind of sick pleasure out of it.”

Her shoulders slump and Ginny makes to leave before she feels Mike’s hand looping around the soft skin of her wrist.

“I don’t like fighting with you either.” He murmurs, before pausing. “Even though we’re not really fighting.”

Ginny frowns. “Then what are we doing?”

“Being idiots.” Mike offered, shrugging slightly as he cracks an eye open to peer up at her.

Her head shakes. She can’t go there, can’t cross the line he’s toeing and willing to cross for her. (Mike told her once that he gave his life to this game and if — if they went there… the fallout for her is so much more than it would be for her. She can see the headlines now: _Mike Lawson, Eternal Stud. Ginny Baker, Can’t Keep Her Legs Closed._ )

“I can’t with — the game and,” Ginny inhales deeply, her fingertips powerless to resist wrapping around his own. He squeezes her hand once and offers her a half a sad smile.

“I know.” He tugs on her wrist. “Come here.”

Ginny hesitates and Mike rolls his eyes. “No one’s gonna come out here, Gin. You’re good.”

Still, she glances back to the door and satisfied no one was going to come looking for them, she approaches his chair, falling in next to him. Or on-top of him, really. The deck chair isn’t exactly primed for cuddling, but Ginny doesn’t really care. Her head falls into the crook of his neck and she sighs, feeling one of his arms wrap around her waist. Eventually, they’ll have to leave.They’ll have to disentangle themselves, go back inside, pretend that nothing’s out of the ordinary. Act as if he hasn’t had his lips against her own and as if there’s nothing brewing between them.

Eventually, but not yet.

For now, Ginny Baker gets to pretend she’s snuck away from a party with her boyfriend for some time alone. For now.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **insomniabug:** Mike calls Ginny late, finds out she's watching a horror movie marathon and either turns on his own tv and they watch it together, or he comes over with food and they watch it on her couch.

“Is that — is that Nightmare on Elm Street?” He’d been talking about something, moments before — most likely something bitter about his life at this point; coaching wasn’t all he’d thought it’d be and he was starting to feel that brand of useless and honestly, Ginny was having a hard time holding back her pointed quips.

(Of course it was going to be _hard_ , what did he expect it to be? Easy? Simple? Coaching is different from playing and even though Mike was a damn fine captain — there’s a learning curve.)

It was half the reason she’d even turned on her TV, keeping the volume low while the horror movie played but it seemed Lawson had the ears of a goddamn bat.

Ginny pauses and the silence is near deafening. “…Maybe.”

An amused snort filters through her phone’s tiny speakers. “Sure you’re gonna be okay watching that in the dark?”

Ginny groaned, knowing that at this point, (three years, two drunken kisses and five knock down drag out fights that nearly destroyed them) his jokes are just gentle ribbing, not anything pointed. “You know anytime you wanna cease with the girl jokes, that’d be great.”

“I say it with love.” Mike quipped.

Ginny laughed. “Right and in another life, I was _Ghandi_.”

He hummed. “Yea, I can see the resemblance between you and the short Indian man that wanted freedom from colonialism.”

Her eyebrows raised in silence. “Wow — Mike Lawson knows his Indian history.”

The two of them fell into an easy silence, and Ginny idly watched the film on her TV as Nancy and Glen rush their way to jail, only to find Rod dead in his cell. 

“What channel?” Mike questions.

“Huh?”

He huffed. “What channel is the movie on, Baker?”

“7…” She replied, voice hesitant.

There’s a moment of silence before she hears the sounds of the movie playing through her phone, matching up with the movie playing on her own TV screen.

“Oh, this is the good part!” She can hear the grin in his voice as he speaks and Ginny doesn’t even try to tamper down her own grin. (She really should get around to telling him she loved him one of these days.)


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous:** Mike loves decorating for the Holidays, amusing Ginny when she sees him in a very obnoxious Christmas sweater.

“The flying fuck is that old man?” Are the first words out of Ginny’s mouth as she steps through Mike’s door. (It’s Christmas Eve and T-minus 10 hours till the party tonight began. Their little rag-tag family had a handful of odd traditions when it came to Christmas — first was the Christmas Eve party at Mike’s place, followed by the lunch at Evelyn’s house. Christmas morning was always reserved for family and presents. Ginny tries not to think about how this is the first Christmas she’s spending with Mike as his girlfriend, since she near had a panic attack when he told her his little Indonesian mother was flying in from Florida for the holiday, along with his sister.)

“Aside from it being the, you know,” Her hand waves at the obnoxious Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer pattern on his front, bordered by the traditional diamond pattern “— obvious old man sweater vibes.”

Mike scowls, turning from where he was hanging up another row of lights around the third tree he had in his house. “Don’t mock the sweater. It was a gift from my niece.”

Ginny’s mouth opens to quip something sassy before Mike’s scowl deepens.

“Don’t even finish that thought, rookie.”

“You didn’t even know what I was gonna say!” Ginny squawked, setting the bags of groceries she’d brought with her.

“Didn’t have too.” He snorted. “I can read you like the back of a DVD case.”

Ginny smirked “Did that come before or after you saw me naked?”

(She doesn’t even feel bad when she hears the sound of a Christmas decoration shattering on the floor.)


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **spartanlady160:** Mike and Ginny's daughter goes to a party (without them knowing) it gets really uncomfortable really fast, and who does she call but her dad?

The thing is — Ginny’s not even in town when it happens and it’s for that reason alone Mike nearly looses his shit. Because he’s the _fun_ parent half the time, despite how much they try to share that role equally. He’s the one that snuck Savannah out when she wanted to get her ears pierced a year earlier than Ginny wanted to let her. He’s the one that snuck Savannah a sip of beer on New Years Eve.

He’s the fun parent. Ginny’s fun too, but — she’s doesn’t have trouble telling the kids no. Mike does. (He’s wanted a family for as long as he possibly could and looking into the eyes of his kids just… — it reduces him to a weak pile of mush, and he knows it, if not because Evelyn finds a mass amount of joy in calling him a fuckin’ soft touch any chance she can get.)

He’s half asleep on the couch when it happens, TV screen casting an odd glow against his skin and the muffled voices of ESPN faintly reaching his ears.

Mike’s ringtone — Telephone by Lady Gaga because he made a stupid drunken bet with Miller last month and he’s an idiot — blares and he near falls off the couch.

“’llo?” He mutters, half expecting to be his wife on the other, laughing softly and calling him an old man for falling asleep infront of the television again.

The reality is much worse. 

“Daddy?” The scared voice of his sixteen year old daughter echoes back at him through his phone’s speakers, and Mike’s heart bottoms out.

“Sweetheart?”

“Can you come and get me?” There’s a tremor in her voice he’s only just noticing now and the blinding protectiveness he feels near overrides any anger he might have at the fact Savannah snuck out.

He swallows and prays his voice comes out normal. “Where —”

“I’m at the Mendez’s.” She cuts across him. “Felix’s party.”

Mike didn’t even know that Felix was having a party, which in hindsight, was probably the point since it’s been a good long amount of time since Mike was apart of the crowd having secret parties. “I’m coming, okay, sweetheart? Just — go outside, sit on the front porch. In the light. I’ll be there are soon as possible.”

“Okay.” She says and Mike hangs up. For a moment, he just sits there — on his living room floor, palms pressed to his eyes and trying to calm his erratic heart. Savannah was fine. She called him. She was okay enough to call him. He was going to get her and then, depending on how the drive home went, he was going to lock her in room for the next twenty odd years. Inhaling sharply, Mike pulls himself to a stand and makes the short trek to his eldest son’s room.

He knocks once on the door before poking his head through. “Issac?”

“Ya Dad?” The eldest Lawson questions 

“I gotta go pick up your sister — can you just, keep an eye out if Tessa wakes up?”

Isaac frowns heavily, wildly glancing up from his notes and at his father. “Wait, where’s —”

“Not important. Have you got your sister?” Mike huffs.

“Yeah, course. I’m just studying.” He gestures at the textbooks open and the notes he’s taking. (Right. Mid-terms. They were gonna have to stock up on snacks soon.)

“Okay. Okay. Uh. I’ll be back soon.” He leaves the door open in case Tessa wake’s up — which, doubtful, since she’s finally able to put themselves back to sleep after her nightmares, but. Tonight’s already seeming like an episode of the twilight zone, so who knows what’s next?

As he’s driving to the Mendez place a handful of moments later, Mike can’t help but loose track of his thoughts. He remembers the first time Isaac snuck out to a party, when he was 16 and looking to avoid his homework. He remembers how _fucked_ it was to find out Isaac wasn’t in his bed the next morning, remembers how Ginny near broke down till Isaac walked through the front door — a little worse for wear but still, for the most part, wholly together.

He remembers how Ginny near fucking lost it and how it took five hours at the batting cages and a six pack of beer before she could even think about dealing with what Isaac had done.

(Mike hopes that they can avoid that this time around. He doesn’t have the time to stop by the liquor store and pick up beer before Ginny flies back in from Chicago.)

* * *

He spots Savannah right as he’s pulling up — there she is, sitting on the porch under the light, huddled in on herself while Maggie, her best friend, rubs soothing circles along her back.

(Oh God.)

Maggie nudges Savannah, pointing to the car and the two girls rise together, making the journey. Savannah silently slips into the passenger seat while Mike exhales, turning to the other girl.

“Hey, Maggie, you okay? Need a ride anywhere?” He questions, trying to take 

“No — I didn’t drink anything tonight and my brother’s about to pick me up.” She points at another car pulling up. “See, there he is.”

“Did —” His teeth tug on his bottom lip.

“Oh, uh — no.” Maggie shook her heard fiercely. “Some people tried to pressure her but she refused and that’s when she called you.” Mike feels the vice around his heart both tighten and lessen at the same time, which he didn’t actually think was possible.

(He didn’t think he’d have four kids with the rookie pitcher who stepped onto his diamond 18 years ago either, nor did he ever expect a double knee reconstruction was gonna be a cornerstone of his career, but here he is.)

A car horn sounds and Maggie huffs, smiling apologetically. “I gotta go, Mr, Lawson.”

“No, yeah of course — thanks for taking care of her Maggie.”

The younger girl flashed another smile before disappearing towards her brother’s car and Mike exhales, pulling away from the curb himself a moment later.

His daughter still hasn’t said anything. Mike doesn’t know what to make of that.

When they’re three blocks from their own house, Mike pulls over. 

“Savannah…” He trails off, eyes closing.

“I’m sorry, okay? I know I screwed up.” She bursts out and there it is — the same fire that lurks within her mother, that only became more potent with time instead of diminishing. “I know that you’re mad and that you’re —”

“M’not mad.” Mike shook his head. “I’m worried and a little hurt, but not mad.”

“You’re not.” Savannah stated with an air of disbelief.

He snorted, casting her a look out of the corner of his eye. “You largely underestimate the amount of times I’ve snuck out of my own house growing up to go to parties.”

“I didn’t —” She shook her head, huffing a breath. “I just wanted to be cool. You know? Everyone always sees me as Mom’s daughter and the tomboy I just — wanted to fit in.”

Mike’s heart breaks. “Your Mom wanted that too you know.” He coughed, shrugging slightly.

Savannah scoffed. “Mom fits in everywhere.”

(It’s hard, Mike rationalizes. The kids only saw the version of Ginny that was cool and confident and good at what she did — seasoned beyond her years who let go of the perceptions she had about herself, who stopped caring what the world thought of her. They didn’t see the rocky road it was to get to this point — the failed games, the therapy sessions, that drunken night right after she signed with Nike and went missing for near 28 hours…)

“Not always.” He sighs, and reaches across the small divide, grabbing Savannah’s hand. He squeezes. “High school sucks, kiddo. It’s a feral social experiment. You gotta ride it out and hopefully, you’ll make it out virtually unscathed.”

(He got lucky — Mike was a popular guy, good at sports and with that natural extroverted charm. Ginny didn’t — outcast for playing with the boys and with that introverted self, she still carries the scars of those years.)

“And I’m not gonna say you’re not in trouble, because you are. Sneaking out to go to a party that your mother and I didn’t even _know_ about when she’s in Chicago for the weekend is not okay, but. What matters more than that is you being safe.” Mike turned in his seat, looking Savannah dead in the eye. “And I want you know this — no matter how much you’ve drunk or wherever you are, you can always call and we’ll come pick you up, no judgement.”

Mike paused. “The next day is fair game, course, but not the night of. Okay?”

Savannah smiled, the action watery and trembling before she nodded. “Can — can we go home now? I just —”

“Yeah.” Mike huffed. “Wanna get drive thru?”

(When Ginny gets home the next morning — an early flight home to surprise her family — and finds her two eldest passed out over her husband, her youngest curled around him, she can’t even help the long tear that tracks down the curve of her cheek. Not even caring about the mess still left on the living room table, she drops her bags and makes her way to the couch, curling herself around her eldest daughter.

She didn’t get much sleep on the flight anyway.)


End file.
